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<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %x
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
94 (S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
95 bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
96 (denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
97 like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
98 assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
99 clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
100 really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
102 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
104 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
105 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
106 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
107 the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
108 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
109 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
111 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
113 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
115 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
116 the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
117 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
118 might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
119 foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
120 that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
122 In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
123 to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
124 C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
125 by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
126 want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
127 unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
128 that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
129 off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
131 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
133 (S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
134 string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
135 the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
138 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
140 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
141 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
142 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
144 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
146 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
147 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
148 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
149 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
150 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
152 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
159 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
161 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
162 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
163 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
164 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
165 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
166 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
169 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
171 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
173 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
175 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
176 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
182 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
184 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
190 or a hash or array slice, such as:
192 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
193 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
195 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
197 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
198 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
201 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
203 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
204 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
205 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
207 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
209 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
210 system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
211 take care of transforming data between external and internal
212 representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
213 point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
214 didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
215 result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
217 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
219 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
220 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
222 =item A sequence of multiple spaces in a charnames alias definition is deprecated
224 (D deprecated) You defined a character name which had multiple space
225 characters in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these
226 names are defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but
227 they could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
228 See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
230 =item assertion botched: %s
232 (X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
234 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
236 (X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
238 =item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
240 (F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
241 the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
243 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
245 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
246 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
247 know which context to supply to the right side.
249 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
251 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily
252 the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
253 Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
254 created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
255 thread. See L<threads>.
257 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
259 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
260 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
262 =item Attempt to bless into a freed package
264 (F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
265 the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
266 do, so it throws up in hands in despair.
268 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
270 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
271 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
272 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
278 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
280 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
281 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
284 bless $self, "$proto";
286 =item Attempt to clear deleted array
288 (S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
289 Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
290 can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
291 callback on the array.
293 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
295 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
296 which is not in its key set.
298 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
300 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
301 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
303 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
305 (S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
306 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
307 outside any of those arenas.
309 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
311 (S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
312 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
313 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
314 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
316 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
318 (S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
319 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
320 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
321 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
324 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
326 (S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
328 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
330 (S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
331 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
332 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
333 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
334 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
335 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
338 =item Attempt to join self
340 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
341 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
342 to move the join() to some other thread.
344 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
346 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
347 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
348 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
349 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
350 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
353 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
355 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
356 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
357 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
360 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
362 (W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
363 been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
364 scalar representing the last index of an array and later
365 assigning through that reference. For example
367 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
370 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
372 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
373 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
374 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
376 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
378 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
379 "locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
380 obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
381 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
383 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
385 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
386 the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
387 The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
388 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
390 =item av_reify called on tied array
392 (S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
393 confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
395 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
397 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
398 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
399 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
400 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
402 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
404 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
405 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
406 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
408 =item Bad filehandle: %s
410 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
411 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
412 open(), or did it in another package.
414 =item Bad free() ignored
416 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
417 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
418 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
420 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
421 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
422 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
426 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
428 =item Badly placed ()'s
430 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
431 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
434 =item Bad name after %s
436 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
437 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
446 $sym = "mypack::$var";
448 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
450 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
453 =item Bad realloc() ignored
455 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
456 had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
457 be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
459 =item Bad symbol for array
461 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
462 wasn't a symbol table entry.
464 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
466 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
467 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
469 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
471 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
472 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
474 =item Bad symbol for hash
476 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
477 wasn't a symbol table entry.
479 =item Bareword found in conditional
481 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
482 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
483 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
487 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
490 use constant TYPO => 1;
491 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
493 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
495 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
497 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
498 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
499 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
501 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
503 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
504 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
505 you need to predeclare a package?
507 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
509 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
510 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
513 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
515 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
516 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
517 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
518 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
519 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
521 =item \1 better written as $1
523 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
524 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
525 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
526 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
527 there are more than 9 backreferences.
529 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
531 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
532 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
533 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
535 =item bind() on closed socket %s
537 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
538 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
540 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
542 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
543 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
545 =item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" or "\b[{]" instead in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
547 =item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" or "\B[{]" instead in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
549 (D deprecated) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following
550 a C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
551 itself in a future release. You can either precede the brace
552 with a backslash, or enclose it in square brackets; the latter
553 is the way to go if the pattern delimiters are C<{}>.
555 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
557 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
559 =item Bizarre copy of %s
561 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
564 =item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
566 (P) When starting a new thread or return values from a thread, Perl
567 encountered an invalid data type.
569 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
571 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
572 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
573 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
575 =item Callback called exit
577 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
578 exited by calling exit.
580 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
582 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
583 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
584 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
585 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
586 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
587 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
588 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
589 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
591 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
593 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
594 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
595 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
596 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
598 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
600 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
601 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
603 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
605 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
606 in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
607 The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
608 no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
610 =item Cannot copy to %s
612 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
613 be directly assigned to.
615 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
617 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
618 either with open() or binmode().
620 =item Cannot set tied @DB::args
622 (F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
623 is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
625 =item Cannot tie unreifiable array
627 (P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
628 keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
629 do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
630 Perl code, but are only used internally.
632 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
634 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
635 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
636 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
638 =item Can't bless non-reference value
640 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
641 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
643 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
645 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
646 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
648 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
650 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
652 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
654 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
655 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
656 like this will reproduce the error:
659 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
660 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
662 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
664 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
665 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
666 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
667 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
669 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
671 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
672 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
673 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
674 Something like this will reproduce the error:
677 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
678 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
680 =item Can't chdir to %s
682 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
683 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
685 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
687 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
690 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
692 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
693 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
703 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
705 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
707 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
710 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
712 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
713 quotas or other plumbing problems.
715 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
717 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
718 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
720 =item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
722 (F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
723 C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
724 issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
725 error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
727 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
729 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
730 a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
732 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
734 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
737 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
739 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
740 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
741 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
743 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
745 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
746 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
747 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
749 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
751 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
752 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
754 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
756 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
757 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
760 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
762 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
763 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
764 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
765 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
767 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
769 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
770 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
771 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
772 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
773 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
774 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
779 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
780 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
781 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
783 =item Can't execute %s
785 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
786 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
788 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
790 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
791 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
793 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
795 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
796 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
797 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
798 for a complete list of available official properties.
800 =item Can't find label %s
802 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
803 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
805 =item Can't find %s on PATH
807 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
810 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
812 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
813 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
814 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
816 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
818 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
819 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
820 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
822 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
824 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
825 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
826 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
827 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
828 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
830 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
832 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
833 property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
834 letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
835 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
836 for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
837 mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by
838 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
843 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
846 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
848 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
851 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
853 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
854 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
855 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
856 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
857 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
858 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
859 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
860 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
861 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
862 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
863 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
864 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
865 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
866 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
867 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
869 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
871 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
872 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
874 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
876 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
877 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
879 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
881 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
882 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
884 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
886 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
887 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
888 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
889 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
891 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
893 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
896 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
898 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
899 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
900 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
902 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
904 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
905 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
906 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
907 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
909 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
911 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
912 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
913 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
914 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
915 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
916 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
918 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
920 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
921 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
924 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
926 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
927 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
928 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
929 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
930 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
931 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
934 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
936 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
937 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
939 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
941 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
942 This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
943 that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
944 to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
945 dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
946 that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
949 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
951 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
952 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
953 want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
956 =item Can't localize through a reference
958 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
959 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
960 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
961 that $ref will still be a reference.
963 =item Can't locate %s
965 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
966 Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
967 the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
968 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
969 extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
970 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
971 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
973 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
975 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
976 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
977 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
978 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
980 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
982 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
983 for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
984 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
986 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
988 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
989 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
990 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
992 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
994 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
995 doesn't seem to exist.
997 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
999 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1000 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1002 =item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
1004 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1007 =item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1009 (S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
1010 that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1011 process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1012 the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1013 from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1014 functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1016 =item Can't modify %s in %s
1018 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1019 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
1021 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
1023 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1026 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
1028 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
1029 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1031 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
1033 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
1036 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1038 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1039 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1040 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1041 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1042 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1043 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1047 (F) You tried to run a perl built with MAD support with
1048 the PERL_XMLDUMP environment variable set, but the file
1049 named by that variable could not be opened.
1051 =item Can't open %s: %s
1053 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1054 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1055 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1056 this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1057 you named on the command line.
1059 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1060 your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
1062 =item Can't open a reference
1064 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1065 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1069 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1070 open is not supported.
1072 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1074 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1075 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1076 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1077 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1079 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1081 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1082 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1083 the command line for writing.
1085 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1087 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1088 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1089 command line for reading.
1091 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1093 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1094 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1095 the command line for writing.
1097 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1099 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1100 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1103 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
1105 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1107 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1108 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1109 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1111 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1113 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1114 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1115 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1116 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1119 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1121 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1122 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1123 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1124 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1125 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1126 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1128 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1130 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1131 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1132 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1134 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1136 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1137 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1139 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1141 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1142 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1144 =item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1146 (F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1147 all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1148 the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1149 supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1151 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1153 (F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1154 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1155 package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1157 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1159 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1160 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1163 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1165 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1166 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1168 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1170 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1171 subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1172 think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1173 write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1174 Perl that the call should be in list context.
1176 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1178 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1179 open already. Bizarre.
1181 =item Can't take log of %g
1183 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1184 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1185 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1188 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1190 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1191 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1192 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1194 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1196 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1197 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1198 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1200 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1202 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1203 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1204 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1205 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1207 =item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1209 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1210 other than "=" after the module name.
1212 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1214 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1215 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1216 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1218 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1220 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1221 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1223 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1225 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1226 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1228 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1230 (F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1231 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1232 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1234 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1236 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1237 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1238 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1240 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1242 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1245 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1247 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1248 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1249 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1250 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1253 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1255 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1256 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1257 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1258 is inside a big-endian group.
1260 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1262 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1263 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1264 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1265 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1268 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1270 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1271 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1272 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1274 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1276 (F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1277 C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1278 L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1279 in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1280 for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1281 of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1282 symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
1284 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1286 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1287 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1288 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1290 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1292 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1293 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1294 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1295 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1296 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1299 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1301 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1302 references can be weakened.
1304 =item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1306 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1307 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1308 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1309 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1311 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1313 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1314 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1315 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1317 =item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
1319 (F)(D deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1320 It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl v5.20. In
1321 the cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1322 derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1324 Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well,
1325 and using non-printable ones will be deprecated starting in v5.18.
1327 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1333 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1334 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1335 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1339 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1342 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1348 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1349 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1350 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1352 pack("c", $x & 255);
1354 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1357 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1359 (W unpack) You tried something like
1361 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1363 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1364 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1365 value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1367 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1369 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1375 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1376 expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1379 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1381 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1383 (W pack) You tried something like
1385 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1387 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1388 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1389 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1391 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1393 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1395 (W unpack) You tried something like
1397 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1399 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1400 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1401 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1403 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1405 =item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1407 (D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1408 to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1409 evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
1410 ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.20. Just use a
1411 semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1413 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1415 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1416 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1417 written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1420 =item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1422 (F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1424 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1426 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1427 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1429 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1431 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1433 =item Closure prototype called
1435 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1436 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1437 This subroutine cannot be called.
1439 =item Code missing after '/'
1441 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1442 another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1444 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches
1447 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1449 (S utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1452 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1453 to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1454 but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1455 it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1456 but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
1459 None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1460 code point. For example,
1462 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1464 will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1466 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1470 This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1472 chr(0x110000) =~ /\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True}/ # Fails.
1473 chr(0x110000) =~ /\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False}/ # Also fails!
1475 and both these succeed:
1477 chr(0x110000) =~ /\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True}/ # Succeeds.
1478 chr(0x110000) =~ /\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False}/ # Also succeeds!
1480 =item %s: Command not found
1482 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1483 shell instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
1484 into Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1488 =item Compilation failed in require
1490 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1491 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1492 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1494 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1496 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1497 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1498 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1499 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1500 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1501 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1502 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1503 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1504 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1506 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1508 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1509 call cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked.
1510 The cond_broadcast() function is used to wake up another thread
1511 that is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1512 sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1513 is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1514 variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1515 thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
1517 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1519 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1520 call cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The
1521 cond_signal() function is used to wake up another thread that
1522 is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1523 sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1524 is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1525 variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1526 thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
1528 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1530 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1531 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1532 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1534 =item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1536 (F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1537 (see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1538 L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1540 =item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1542 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1543 overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
1544 L<overload> pragma?.
1546 =item Constant is not %s reference
1548 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1549 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1550 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1551 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1552 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1554 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1556 (W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1557 been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1558 for commentary and workarounds.
1560 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1562 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1563 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1566 =item Constant(%s) unknown
1568 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1569 to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1570 character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1571 forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?.
1573 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1575 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1576 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1578 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1580 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1581 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
1582 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1583 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1585 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1586 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1588 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1590 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1592 =item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1594 (P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1595 one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1596 latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1598 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1600 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1601 expression compiler gave it.
1603 =item corrupted regexp program
1605 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1608 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1610 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1612 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1614 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1615 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1618 =item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1620 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1622 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1623 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1624 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1625 which case it indicates something else.
1627 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1628 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1630 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1632 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1633 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1634 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1636 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1638 (D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1639 discouraged since 5.004.
1641 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1642 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1643 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1644 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1646 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1647 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1653 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1654 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1655 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1659 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in
1662 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1663 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1664 of the C<....> part.
1666 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1669 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1671 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1672 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1674 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1676 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1677 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1678 that triggers this error.
1680 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1682 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1683 has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1684 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1685 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1686 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1687 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1688 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1690 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1694 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1696 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to have
1697 lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1699 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1701 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1703 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1704 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1705 than to create a dangling reference.
1707 =item Did not produce a valid header
1711 =item %s did not return a true value
1713 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1714 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1715 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1716 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1718 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1720 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1723 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1725 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1726 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1729 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1731 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1732 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1737 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1738 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
1740 =item Document contains no data
1744 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1746 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1747 define a C<$VERSION>.
1749 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1751 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1752 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1754 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1756 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1758 =item do_study: out of memory
1760 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1762 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1764 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1765 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1766 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1767 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1768 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1769 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1770 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1771 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1773 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1775 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1776 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1778 =item dump is not supported
1780 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1782 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1784 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1787 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1789 (W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
1790 type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1792 =item elseif should be elsif
1794 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
1795 it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1796 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1797 unlikely to be what you want.
1799 =item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1801 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1802 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1803 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1805 =item entering effective %s failed
1807 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1808 effective uids or gids failed.
1810 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1812 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1813 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1814 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1816 =item Error converting file specification %s
1818 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1819 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1820 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1821 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1822 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1824 =item Escape literal pattern white space under /x
1826 (D deprecated) You compiled a regular expression pattern with C</x> to
1827 ignore white space, and you used, as a literal, one of the characters
1828 that Perl plans to eventually treat as white space. The character must
1829 be escaped somehow, or it will work differently on a future Perl that
1830 does treat it as white space. The easiest way is to insert a backslash
1831 immediately before it, or to enclose it with square brackets. This
1832 change is to bring Perl into conformance with Unicode recommendations.
1833 Here are the five characters that generate this warning:
1835 U+200E LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK,
1836 U+200F RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARK,
1837 U+2028 LINE SEPARATOR,
1839 U+2029 PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR.
1841 =item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1843 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1844 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1845 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1847 =item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
1849 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1850 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1851 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1852 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1853 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1854 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1855 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1857 =item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
1859 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1860 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1861 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1863 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in
1866 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1867 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1869 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1872 =item Excessively long <> operator
1874 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1875 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1876 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1877 variable and glob that.
1879 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1881 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
1882 OS. See L<perlport>.
1884 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1886 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1888 =item Exiting eval via %s
1890 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1891 goto, or a loop control statement.
1893 =item Exiting format via %s
1895 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1896 goto, or a loop control statement.
1898 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1900 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1901 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1902 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1904 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1906 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1907 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1909 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1911 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1912 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1914 =item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1916 (F) You wrote something like
1920 to denote a capturing group of the form
1921 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
1922 but omitted the C<")">.
1924 =item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1926 (F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
1927 only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
1928 C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
1929 containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
1930 This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
1931 interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
1932 have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
1933 L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
1935 =item Experimental "%s" subs not enabled
1937 (F) To use lexical subs, you must first enable them:
1939 no warnings 'experimental::lexical_subs';
1940 use feature 'lexical_subs';
1943 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1945 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1946 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1947 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1948 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1950 =item %s: Expression syntax
1952 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1953 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1955 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1957 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1958 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1959 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1961 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1963 (W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1964 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1965 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
1966 construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
1967 the "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression
1968 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1970 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
1972 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1973 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1974 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1975 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1977 =item fcntl is not implemented
1979 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1980 PDP-11 or something?
1982 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1984 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1987 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1989 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
1990 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1991 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1992 C<u63> as the format.
1994 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1996 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1997 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1998 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1999 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2001 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
2003 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2004 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
2005 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2006 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2007 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2008 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
2010 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2012 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2013 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
2016 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2018 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2019 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
2021 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2023 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
2024 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2025 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2028 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2030 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
2031 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
2032 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2035 =item Format not terminated
2037 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2038 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2040 =item Format %s redefined
2042 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
2045 no warnings 'redefine';
2046 eval "format NAME =...";
2049 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2059 (or something like that).
2061 =item %s found where operator expected
2063 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2064 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
2065 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2066 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
2068 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2070 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2072 =item gethostent not implemented
2074 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2075 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2078 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
2080 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2081 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2083 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2085 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2086 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2088 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2090 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2091 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2092 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2094 =item given is experimental
2096 (S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2097 is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2098 in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2099 L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
2101 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
2103 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
2104 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
2105 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2106 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
2108 =item glob failed (%s)
2110 (S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
2111 for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2112 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
2113 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
2114 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2115 is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2116 in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2117 if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2118 all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
2119 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
2120 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
2122 =item Glob not terminated
2124 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2125 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2126 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2127 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2129 =item gmtime(%f) too large
2131 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
2132 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
2133 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2134 not-a-number value).
2136 =item gmtime(%f) too small
2138 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
2139 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
2141 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2143 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2144 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2146 =item goto must have label
2148 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2149 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2151 =item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2153 (F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2154 the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2155 has since been undefined.
2157 =item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
2160 (F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2161 they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2162 this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2164 =item ()-group starts with a count
2166 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2167 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2169 =item %s had compilation errors.
2171 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2173 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2175 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2176 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2177 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2179 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2181 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2182 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
2184 =item %s has too many errors
2186 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2187 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2189 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2191 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2192 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2193 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2195 =item Identifier too long
2197 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2198 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2199 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2200 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2202 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2204 (W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a
2205 zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
2206 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
2207 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2209 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2211 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2213 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2215 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2216 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2219 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2221 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2222 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2224 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2226 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2227 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2228 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2229 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2230 to your Perl administrator.
2232 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2234 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2235 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2237 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2239 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2240 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2242 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2244 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2246 =item Illegal division by zero
2248 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2249 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2252 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2254 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2255 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2256 number stopped before the illegal character.
2258 =item Illegal modulus zero
2260 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2261 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2263 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2265 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2266 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2268 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2270 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2272 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2274 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2275 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2277 =item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2279 (F) You wrote something like
2283 The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2284 capturing group. See
2285 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2287 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2289 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2290 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2292 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2294 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2295 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2296 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2298 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2300 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2301 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2302 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2305 =item (in cleanup) %s
2307 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2308 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2309 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2310 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2311 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2313 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2314 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2316 =item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2318 (F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
2319 expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2320 too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2321 enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2323 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2326 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2327 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2328 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2330 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2332 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2333 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2334 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2336 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2338 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2339 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2340 either consume text or fail.
2342 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2345 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2347 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2348 initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2349 C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2350 context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2351 supported in a future perl release.
2353 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2355 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2356 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2357 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2358 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2359 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2360 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2361 L<perlsec> for more information.
2363 =item Insecure directory in %s
2365 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2366 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2367 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2370 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2372 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2373 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2374 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2375 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2376 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2378 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2380 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2381 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2382 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2383 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2385 =item In '(?...)', splitting the initial '(?' is deprecated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2387 (D regexp, deprecated) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in
2388 this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
2389 indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
2390 and the C<"?">, but you separated them. Due to an accident of
2391 implementation, this prohibition was not enforced, but we do
2392 plan to forbid it in a future Perl version. This message
2393 serves as giving you fair warning of this pending change.
2395 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2397 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2398 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2399 integers for your architecture.
2401 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2403 (S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2404 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2405 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2406 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2407 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2408 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2409 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2410 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2413 =item Integer overflow in srand
2415 (S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2416 in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2417 replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2418 architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2419 you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2420 return the same sequence of random numbers.
2422 =item Integer overflow in version
2424 =item Integer overflow in version %d
2426 (W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2427 the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2428 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
2429 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2430 to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
2432 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2434 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2435 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2438 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2440 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2441 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2442 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2443 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2444 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2445 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2447 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2449 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2450 <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2453 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2455 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2456 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2457 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2458 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2460 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2462 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2463 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2465 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2467 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2468 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2470 =item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by <-- HERE in '%s
2472 (F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
2473 the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
2474 the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2476 =item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s}
2478 (F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
2479 indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2481 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2483 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2484 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2486 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in
2489 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2490 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2491 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2492 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2493 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2494 escape was discovered.
2496 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2498 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in
2501 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2502 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
2503 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2505 =item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2507 (F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2508 cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2509 arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2510 B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2512 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2514 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2515 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2516 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2517 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2519 =item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
2521 (W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
2522 not valid characters numbers, so it return the Unicode replacement
2525 =item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2527 (S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
2528 with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
2529 See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
2531 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2533 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2534 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2535 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2536 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2537 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2539 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2541 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2542 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2544 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2546 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2547 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2548 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2551 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2553 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2554 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2555 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2556 list was terminated too soon.
2558 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2560 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2561 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2562 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2563 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2564 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2565 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2567 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2569 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2570 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2572 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2575 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2577 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2578 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2579 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2580 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2581 must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2582 optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2583 trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2584 after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2585 text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2586 for more details on allowed version formats.
2588 =item Invalid version object
2590 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2591 Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2592 an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
2594 =item In '(*VERB...)', splitting the initial '(*' is deprecated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2596 (D regexp, deprecated) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in
2597 this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
2598 indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
2599 and the C<"*">, but you separated them. Due to an accident of
2600 implementation, this prohibition was not enforced, but we do
2601 plan to forbid it in a future Perl version. This message
2602 serves as giving you fair warning of this pending change.
2604 =item ioctl is not implemented
2606 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2607 strange for a machine that supports C.
2609 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2611 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2612 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
2614 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2616 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2617 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
2620 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2622 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2623 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2625 =item $* is no longer supported
2627 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2628 perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
2629 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2630 matching within a string.
2632 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2633 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2634 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2635 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2637 =item $# is no longer supported
2639 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2640 perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
2641 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
2643 =item '%s' is not a code reference
2645 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2646 overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2647 an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
2649 =item '%s' is not an overloadable type
2651 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2654 =item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
2656 (S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
2657 that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
2658 given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
2659 make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
2660 it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
2661 should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
2662 line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
2664 =item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
2666 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2668 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2670 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2671 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2674 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2676 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2677 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2680 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2682 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2683 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2686 =item leaving effective %s failed
2688 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2689 effective uids or gids failed.
2691 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2693 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2694 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2695 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2697 =item length() used on %s
2699 (W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2700 probably wanted a count of the items.
2702 Array size can be obtained by doing:
2706 The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2710 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2712 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2713 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2714 couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2715 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
2716 it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
2718 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2720 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2723 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2725 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2726 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2729 =item List form of piped open not implemented
2731 (F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
2732 form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
2733 Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
2735 =item localtime(%f) too large
2737 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
2738 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2739 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2740 not-a-number value).
2742 =item localtime(%f) too small
2744 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
2745 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2748 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2750 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2751 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2753 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2755 (W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
2756 is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
2757 accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
2758 warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
2759 when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
2760 insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2762 =item lstat() on filehandle%s
2764 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2765 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2766 instead on the filehandle.)
2768 =item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
2770 (W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
2771 attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
2772 does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
2773 want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
2774 details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
2775 if you really know what you are doing.
2777 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2779 (W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
2780 subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
2781 not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
2782 add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
2783 foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
2785 See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
2787 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2789 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2790 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2792 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2794 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2795 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2797 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2799 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2806 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2807 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2808 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2809 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2811 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2813 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2814 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2815 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2816 when the function is called.
2818 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2820 (S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2821 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2823 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2824 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2825 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2827 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2828 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2829 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2832 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2834 =item Malformed UTF-8 character immediately after '%s'
2836 (F) You said C<use utf8>, but the program file doesn't comply with UTF-8
2837 encoding rules. The message prints out the properly encoded characters
2838 just before the first bad one. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a
2839 warning is generated that gives more details about the type of
2842 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
2844 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2846 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2848 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2849 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2851 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2853 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2854 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2856 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2858 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2859 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2861 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2863 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2864 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2866 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2868 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2869 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2870 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
2873 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2875 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2876 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2877 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2878 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2879 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2881 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2883 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2884 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2887 =item '%' may not be used in pack
2889 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2890 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2891 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2893 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2895 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2896 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2898 =item Method %s not permitted
2902 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2904 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2905 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2906 ended earlier on the current line.
2908 =item Misplaced _ in number
2910 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2911 separate two digits.
2913 =item Missing argument in %s
2915 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2918 =item Missing argument to -%c
2920 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2921 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2923 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2925 =item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2927 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2928 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2929 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2930 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2933 =item Missing braces on \o{}
2935 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2937 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2939 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2940 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2942 =item Missing command in piped open
2944 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2945 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2948 =item Missing control char name in \c
2950 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2953 =item Missing name in "%s sub"
2955 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2956 they have a name with which they can be found.
2958 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2960 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2961 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2962 can vary from one line to the next.
2964 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2966 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2967 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2969 =item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2971 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2973 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
2975 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2977 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2978 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
2979 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2980 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2981 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2983 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2984 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2985 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2987 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2988 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2989 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2990 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2991 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2992 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2994 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2995 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2996 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2997 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2999 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
3001 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3002 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3005 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3007 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3008 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
3009 the previous line just because you saw this message.
3011 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3013 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
3014 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
3015 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3017 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3020 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3022 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3023 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3026 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3027 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3030 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
3032 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3033 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3036 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
3038 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3039 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
3041 =item Module name must be constant
3043 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3045 =item Module name required with -%c option
3047 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3048 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3049 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
3051 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
3053 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
3054 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3055 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3056 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3058 =item msg%s not implemented
3060 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3062 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3064 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3065 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
3067 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
3069 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3070 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3071 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3073 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
3075 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3078 =item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3080 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3081 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3082 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3083 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3084 name, or rename the lexical variable.
3086 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
3088 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3089 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3090 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
3092 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3094 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
3095 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
3096 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
3097 provided for this purpose.
3099 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
3100 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
3101 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
3102 will not trigger this warning.
3104 =item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3106 (F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3107 exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3108 constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3110 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3111 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3112 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3114 The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
3115 need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3116 two separate things, you need to separate them:
3118 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3119 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3120 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3121 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3123 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
3125 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3126 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3128 =item Negative length
3130 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3131 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
3133 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3135 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3136 greater than or equal to zero.
3138 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3140 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3141 So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows
3142 whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3144 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
3145 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
3147 =item %s never introduced
3149 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3150 scope before it could possibly have been used.
3152 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3154 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3155 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3158 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
3159 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3161 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in
3162 a bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in
3163 a character class loses its specialness: it matches almost
3164 everything, which is probably not what you want.
3166 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3168 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
3169 sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
3170 bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
3171 backslash in double-quotish:
3173 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
3174 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
3177 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
3179 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
3182 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
3186 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
3188 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and
3189 it doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
3191 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
3192 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
3194 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
3197 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
3199 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3200 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3201 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3202 securable. See L<perlsec>.
3204 =item No code specified for -%c
3206 (F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3207 you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3208 argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3214 =item No comma allowed after %s
3216 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3217 not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
3218 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3220 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3221 a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3222 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3223 system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3224 use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3225 please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3226 explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3227 it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3228 still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3229 the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3230 constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
3232 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
3234 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3235 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3236 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
3238 =item No DB::DB routine defined
3240 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3241 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3242 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3245 =item No dbm on this machine
3247 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
3248 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
3250 =item No DB::sub routine defined
3252 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3253 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3254 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3255 of each ordinary subroutine call.
3257 =item No directory specified for -I
3259 (F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3260 I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3262 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
3264 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3265 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3266 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
3268 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3270 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
3271 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3273 =item No input file after < on command line
3275 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3276 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3277 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
3279 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3281 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3282 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3283 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3284 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3286 =item Non-hex character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3288 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
3289 a hex one was expected, like
3294 =item Non-octal character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3296 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
3297 an octal one was expected, like
3301 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3303 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3304 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3307 =item "no" not allowed in expression
3309 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3310 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3312 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3314 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3315 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3316 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
3318 =item No output file after > on command line
3320 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3321 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3322 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
3324 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
3326 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3327 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3328 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
3330 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3332 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3333 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3334 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
3336 =item No Perl script found in input
3338 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3339 with #! and containing the word "perl".
3341 =item No setregid available
3343 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3346 =item No setreuid available
3348 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3351 =item No such class %s
3353 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3354 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
3356 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3358 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3359 variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3360 The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3363 =item No such hook: %s
3365 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3366 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3368 =item No such pipe open
3370 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
3371 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3372 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
3374 =item No such signal: SIG%s
3376 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3377 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3378 names on your system.
3380 =item Not a CODE reference
3382 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3383 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3384 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3387 =item Not a GLOB reference
3389 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3390 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3391 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3392 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3394 =item Not a HASH reference
3396 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3397 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3398 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3400 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3402 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3403 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3404 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3406 =item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3408 (F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3409 another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3410 or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3412 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3414 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3415 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3416 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3418 =item Not a subroutine reference
3420 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3421 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3422 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3425 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3427 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3428 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3430 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3432 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3434 =item Not enough format arguments
3436 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3437 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3441 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3442 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3445 =item (?[...]) not valid in locale in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3447 (F) C<(?[...])> cannot be used within the scope of a C<S<use locale>> or with
3448 an C</l> regular expression modifier, as that would require deferring
3449 to run-time the calculation of what it should evaluate to, and it is
3450 regex compile-time only.
3452 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3454 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3455 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3456 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3457 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3458 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3460 =item Null filename used
3462 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3463 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
3465 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3467 (S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3470 =item Null picture in formline
3472 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3473 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3474 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3478 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3480 =item NULL regexp argument
3482 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3484 =item NULL regexp parameter
3486 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3488 =item Number too long
3490 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3491 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3492 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3493 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3496 =item Number with no digits
3498 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
3499 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
3502 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3504 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3505 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3506 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3508 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3510 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3511 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3513 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3515 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3516 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3518 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3520 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3521 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3523 =item Offset outside string
3525 (F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3526 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3527 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3528 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3529 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3530 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3533 =item %s() on unopened %s
3535 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3536 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3537 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3539 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3541 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3542 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3546 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3550 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3552 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3554 (D io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3555 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3556 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3559 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3561 (D io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3562 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3563 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3566 =item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3568 (F) You wrote something like
3570 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
3572 There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
3575 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3577 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3578 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3579 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3580 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3582 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
3584 (S utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3585 semantics on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do
3586 is not defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
3588 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3589 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3591 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3592 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
3594 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
3596 (S utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3597 semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of
3598 surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics
3599 are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and they are to do
3600 nothing for this operation. Because the use of surrogates can be
3601 dangerous, Perl warns.
3603 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3604 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3606 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3607 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
3609 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3611 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3612 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3613 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3614 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3617 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3619 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3620 in the current lexical scope.
3622 =item Out of memory!
3624 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3625 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3626 no option but to exit immediately.
3628 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3629 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3630 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3631 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3632 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3634 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3636 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3637 the largest possible memory allocation.
3639 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3641 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3642 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3643 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3644 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3646 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3648 (X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3649 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3652 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3653 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3654 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3655 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3656 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3657 where the failed request happened.
3659 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3661 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3662 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3663 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3665 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3667 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3668 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3671 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3673 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3674 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3676 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3678 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3679 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3681 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3683 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3684 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3685 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3687 =item overload arg '%s' is invalid
3689 (W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
3690 recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
3692 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3694 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3695 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3698 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3700 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3701 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3703 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3705 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3706 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3707 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3708 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3710 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3712 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3713 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3717 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3718 page. See L<perlform>.
3722 (P) An internal error.
3724 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3726 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3727 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3728 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3729 enter this branch on this platform.
3731 =item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
3733 (P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
3734 was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
3735 able to initialize properly.
3737 =item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
3739 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3741 =item panic: ck_split, type=%u
3743 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3745 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
3747 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3748 there are in the savestack.
3750 =item panic: del_backref
3752 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3757 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3758 it wasn't an eval context.
3760 =item panic: do_subst
3762 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3765 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3767 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3770 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3772 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3777 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3779 =item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
3781 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3782 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3784 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
3786 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
3787 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
3788 Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
3789 the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
3791 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
3793 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3795 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
3797 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3799 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3801 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3803 =item panic: last, type=%u
3805 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3806 it wasn't a block context.
3808 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3810 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3813 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
3815 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3816 invalid enum on the top of it.
3818 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3820 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3821 references to an object.
3823 =item panic: malloc, %s
3825 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3827 =item panic: memory wrap
3829 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3831 =item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
3833 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3834 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3836 =item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
3838 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3839 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3841 =item panic: pad_free po
3843 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3845 =item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
3847 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3848 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3850 =item panic: pad_sv po
3852 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3854 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
3856 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3857 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3859 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3861 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3863 =item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
3865 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3867 =item panic: pp_match%s
3869 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3872 =item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
3874 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3876 =item panic: realloc, %s
3878 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3880 =item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
3882 (P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
3883 reference count other than 1.
3885 =item panic: restartop in %s
3887 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3888 didn't supply the destination.
3890 =item panic: return, type=%u
3892 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3893 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3895 =item panic: scan_num, %s
3897 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3899 =item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found
3901 (P) while compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
3902 blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
3903 seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
3905 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
3907 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
3908 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
3909 is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
3911 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3913 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3914 scalar's string buffer.
3916 =item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
3918 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3921 =item panic: top_env
3923 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3925 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3927 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
3928 permitted at run time.
3930 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3932 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3933 to even) byte length.
3935 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3937 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3938 to even) byte length.
3940 =item panic: yylex, %s
3942 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3944 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3946 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3952 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3954 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3956 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3958 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3961 =item Passing malformed UTF-8 to "%s" is deprecated
3963 (D deprecated, utf8) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl
3964 core or in XS code. Such code was trying to find out if a character,
3965 allegedly stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such
3966 as being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded in
3967 legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used by
3968 knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked against
3969 was. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a further message is raised,
3970 giving details of the malformation.
3972 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex;
3973 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3975 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3976 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
3977 the nesting limit is exceeded.
3979 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
3982 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3984 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3985 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3986 redirected it with select().)
3988 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3990 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3991 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3992 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3994 =item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
3995 utility to report; in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3997 (D regexp, deprecated) You used a regular expression with
3998 case-insensitive matching, and there is a bug in Perl in which the
3999 built-in regular expression folding rules are not accurate. This
4000 may lead to incorrect results. Please report this as a bug using the
4001 L<perlbug> utility. (This message is marked deprecated, so that it by
4002 default will be turned-on.)
4004 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
4006 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4007 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4008 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4009 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4011 =item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4013 (F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4014 Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4015 of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4016 interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4017 decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4018 is equivalent to v5.100.
4020 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
4022 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4023 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4024 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4026 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4028 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
4029 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
4031 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4033 (X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
4035 =item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4037 (F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4038 on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4039 Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4040 wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4042 =item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4044 (S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
4045 contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4046 hash seed you think you are.
4048 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4050 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4052 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4053 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4056 are supported and installed on your system.
4057 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4059 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4060 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
4061 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4062 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4063 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4064 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4065 Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4066 fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4067 time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
4068 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
4070 =item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4072 (S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
4073 but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
4076 Numeric | String | Result
4077 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4078 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4079 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
4080 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal randomization
4082 Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
4083 case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
4085 =item pid %x not a child
4087 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4088 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4089 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
4091 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
4093 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4095 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4097 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
4098 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4099 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4100 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4101 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4103 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4105 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4106 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4108 =item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by
4111 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
4112 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
4113 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
4114 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
4115 will cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular
4116 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4118 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4121 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4122 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4123 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4124 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
4125 and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4126 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4128 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4131 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4132 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4133 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4134 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
4135 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4136 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4138 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
4140 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
4141 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
4142 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
4143 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
4145 You probably wrote something like this:
4152 when you should have written this:
4159 If you really want comments, build your list the
4160 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
4164 'b', # another comment
4167 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
4169 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
4170 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
4171 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
4174 You probably wrote something like this:
4178 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
4179 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
4183 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
4185 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
4186 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
4187 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
4188 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
4190 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
4192 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
4193 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
4195 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
4197 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
4198 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
4199 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
4200 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
4202 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
4204 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
4205 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
4206 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
4207 followed by the word 'bar'.
4209 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
4210 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
4212 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
4213 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
4214 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
4216 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
4218 (W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
4219 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
4220 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
4221 to the array you apparently lost track of.
4223 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
4225 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
4229 is now misinterpreted as
4233 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
4234 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
4235 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
4238 =item Premature end of script headers
4242 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
4244 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4245 before now. Check your control flow.
4247 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
4249 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
4250 before now. Check your control flow.
4252 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
4254 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
4255 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
4256 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
4257 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
4260 =item Property '%s' is unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4262 (F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
4263 known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
4264 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
4265 for a complete list of available official
4266 properties. If it is a L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
4267 it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
4270 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
4272 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
4273 useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
4275 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4277 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
4278 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4280 =item Prototype not terminated
4282 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
4285 =item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
4287 (W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
4288 match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
4289 use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
4290 class, which should know about the locale's rules.
4291 (See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
4293 Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
4294 Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
4297 Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
4298 locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
4299 CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
4300 "MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
4301 meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
4302 should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
4303 positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
4304 incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
4305 is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
4306 case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
4307 change when upper cased.
4309 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4311 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
4312 you meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular
4313 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4315 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4317 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
4318 the {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular
4319 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4321 =item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex
4323 =item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4325 (W regexp) Minima should be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
4326 want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}.
4328 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression in regex; marked by <--
4331 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
4332 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
4333 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
4334 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
4335 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
4337 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4340 =item Range iterator outside integer range
4342 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
4343 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
4344 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
4345 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
4347 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4349 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
4350 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4352 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
4354 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
4355 before now. Check your control flow.
4357 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
4359 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4361 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
4363 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4365 =item Reallocation too large: %x
4367 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
4369 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
4371 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
4374 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
4376 (S debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
4377 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
4378 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
4380 =item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
4382 (P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
4383 a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
4384 $fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
4385 loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
4387 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
4389 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
4390 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
4391 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
4393 =item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
4395 =item refcnt: fd %d%s
4397 =item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
4399 (P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
4400 you see this message, something is very wrong.
4402 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
4404 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
4405 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
4406 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
4407 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
4409 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
4410 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
4411 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
4412 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
4414 =item Reference is already weak
4416 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
4417 Doing so has no effect.
4419 =item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4421 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
4422 to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
4423 (normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4424 backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
4426 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4428 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
4429 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
4430 you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4431 expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
4433 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4436 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4438 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
4439 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
4440 such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
4441 spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
4443 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4446 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE
4449 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4450 are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4451 expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
4453 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4456 =item regexp memory corruption
4458 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4459 expression compiler gave it.
4461 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4463 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4465 (F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
4466 of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
4468 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <--
4471 (F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
4472 another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
4473 expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4474 the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4476 =item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4478 (F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
4479 mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4480 supposed to be there.
4482 =item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
4484 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4487 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
4489 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
4490 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
4491 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
4493 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
4495 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
4496 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
4499 =item '%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'
4501 (W misc, regexp) You wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179> in a
4502 double-quotish string. All but the last digit is treated as a single
4503 character, specified in octal. The last digit is the next character in
4504 the string. To tell Perl that this is indeed what you want, you can use
4505 the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use exactly three digits to specify the octal
4508 =item Reversed %s= operator
4510 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
4511 always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
4513 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4515 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
4516 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4518 =item Scalars leaked: %d
4520 (S internal) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping
4521 of scalars: not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time
4522 Perl exited. What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which
4523 is of course bad, especially if the Perl program is intended to be
4526 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4528 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4529 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4530 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4531 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4532 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4533 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4534 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4536 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
4537 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
4538 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4541 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4543 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
4544 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4545 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4546 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4547 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4548 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4549 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4551 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4552 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4553 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4556 =item Search pattern not terminated
4558 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4559 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4560 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
4562 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
4563 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
4564 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4565 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4567 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
4569 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
4572 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
4573 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
4574 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
4575 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
4577 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4579 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4580 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4582 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4584 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4585 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4587 =item select not implemented
4589 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4591 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
4593 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4594 the current implementation.
4596 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
4598 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4599 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
4601 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4603 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4604 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
4606 =item sem%s not implemented
4608 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
4610 =item send() on closed socket %s
4612 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
4613 before now. Check your control flow.
4615 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4617 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
4618 <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4619 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4621 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4623 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
4624 but has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the
4625 regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4627 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4629 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4630 <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4631 discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4632 Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
4633 redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
4634 causes, see L<perlre>.
4636 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
4638 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
4639 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See
4642 =item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4644 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4645 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4647 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
4649 (F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
4650 followed immediately by a ')'.
4652 =item Server error (a.k.a. "500 Server error")
4654 (A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
4655 when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
4656 actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
4657 frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
4658 not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
4659 headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
4661 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4663 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
4664 the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
4665 user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
4666 variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
4667 in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
4668 less. Please see the following for more information:
4670 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4671 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4672 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
4674 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4676 =item setegid() not implemented
4678 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4679 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4682 =item seteuid() not implemented
4684 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4685 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4688 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4690 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4691 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4694 =item setrgid() not implemented
4696 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4697 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4700 =item setruid() not implemented
4702 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4703 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4706 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4708 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4709 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4710 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4712 =item shm%s not implemented
4714 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4716 =item !=~ should be !~
4718 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4719 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4720 operators: probably not what you intended.
4722 =item <> should be quotes
4724 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4727 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4729 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4730 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4731 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4732 probably not what you had in mind.
4734 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4736 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4739 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4741 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4742 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4744 =item Slab leaked from cv %p
4746 (S) If you see this message, then something is seriously wrong with the
4747 internal bookkeeping of op trees. An op tree needed to be freed after
4748 a compilation error, but could not be found, so it was leaked instead.
4750 =item sleep(%u) too large
4752 (W overflow) You called C<sleep> with a number that was larger than
4753 it can reliably handle and C<sleep> probably slept for less time than
4756 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4758 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4759 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure
4760 for the smart match.
4762 =item Smartmatch is experimental
4764 (S experimental::smartmatch) This warning is emitted if you
4765 use the smartmatch (C<~~>) operator. This is currently an experimental
4766 feature, and its details are subject to change in future releases of
4767 Perl. Particularly, its current behavior is noticed for being
4768 unnecessarily complex and unintuitive, and is very likely to be
4771 =item sort is now a reserved word
4773 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4774 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4776 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4778 (F) A sort comparison subroutine written in XS must return exactly one
4779 item. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4781 =item Source filters apply only to byte streams
4783 (F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
4784 source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
4785 not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
4786 C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
4788 =item splice() offset past end of array
4790 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4791 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
4792 end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
4793 try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
4794 See L<perlfunc/splice>.
4798 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4799 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4800 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4802 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4804 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4805 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4806 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4807 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4810 =item "state %s" used in sort comparison
4812 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
4813 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
4814 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
4815 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
4816 name, or rename the lexical variable.
4818 =item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
4820 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
4821 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
4822 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
4824 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4826 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4827 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4829 =item Strings with code points over 0xFF may not be mapped into in-memory file handles
4831 (W utf8) You tried to open a reference to a scalar for read or append
4832 where the scalar contained code points over 0xFF. In-memory files
4833 model on-disk files and can only contain bytes.
4835 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4837 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation