=head1 NAME perldiag - various Perl diagnostics =head1 DESCRIPTION These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of desperation): (W) A warning (optional). (D) A deprecation (optional). (S) A severe warning (default). (F) A fatal error (trappable). (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable). (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable). (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl). The majority of messages from the first three classifications above (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C pragma. If a message can be controlled by the C pragma, its warning category is included with the classification letter in the description below. Optional warnings are enabled by using the C pragma or the B<-w> and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L. Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled with the C pragma or the B<-X> switch. Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See L. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C pragma. See L. The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a letter. =over 4 =item A thread exited while %d other threads were still running (W) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running. Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main thread. See L. =item accept() on closed socket %s (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See L. =item Allocation too large: %lx (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine. =item '!' allowed only after types %s (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types. See L. =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use & (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is not imported. To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package. Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's imported with the C pragma). To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C prefix on the operator (e.g. C) or declare the subroutine to be an object method (see L or L). =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator (F) You wrote something like C which doesn't mean anything at all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either first or last. (In the past, C was synonymous with C, which was probably not what you would have expected.) =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration. =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please. =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two streams, such as open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!"; while () { print; print OUT; } close OUT; =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s) (W misc) The pattern match (C), substitution (C), and transliteration (C) operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See L and L for alternatives. =item Args must match #! line (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches; for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>. =item Arg too short for msgsnd (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long). =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as: $foo{$bar} $ref->{"susie"}[12] =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element, such as: $foo{$bar} $ref->{"susie"}[12] or a hash or array slice, such as: @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy] @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"} =item %s argument is not a subroutine name (F) The argument to exists() for C must be a subroutine name, and not a subroutine call. C will generate this error. =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message will identify which operator was so unfortunate. =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s() (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This is now heavily deprecated. =item assertion botched: %s (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure. =item Assertion failed: file "%s" (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined. =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't know which context to supply to the right side. =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash. =item Attempt to clear a restricted hash (F) It is currently not allowed to clear a restricted hash, even if the new hash would contain the same keys as before. This may change in the future. =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been declared readonly from a restricted hash. =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key which is not in its key set. =item Attempt to bless into a reference (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote bless $self, $proto; when you intended bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto; If you actually want to bless into the stringified version of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for example by: bless $self, "$proto"; =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any of those arenas. =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string that can no longer be found in the table. =item Attempt to free temp prematurely (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free it. =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases. =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted. =item Attempt to join self (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need to move the join() to some other thread. =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to avoid this warning. =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to dereference it first. See L. =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively, S, S, and S. =item Bad evalled substitution pattern (F) You've used the C switch to evaluate the replacement for a substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate, most likely an unexpected right brace '}'. =item Bad filehandle: %s (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or did it in another package. =item Bad free() ignored (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by setting environment variable C to 0. This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard" dynamic linking, like C and C. It is a bug of C which is left unnoticed if C uses I system malloc(). =item Bad hash (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer. =item Bad index while coercing array into hash (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater. See L. =item Badly placed ()'s (A) You've accidentally run your script through B instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself. =item Bad name after %s:: (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes, so $var = 'myvar'; $sym = mypack::$var; is not the same as $var = 'myvar'; $sym = "mypack::$var"; =item Bad realloc() ignored (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by setting environment variable C to 1. =item Bad symbol for array (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that wasn't a symbol table entry. =item Bad symbol for filehandle (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that wasn't a symbol table entry. =item Bad symbol for hash (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that wasn't a symbol table entry. =item Bareword found in conditional (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the last argument of the previous construct, for example: open FOO || die; It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as a bareword: use constant TYPO => 1; if (TYOP) { print "foo" } The C pragma is useful in avoiding such errors. =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine? =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C, but the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps you need to predeclare a package? =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited. =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted (F) Perl found a C subroutine (or a C directive, which implies a C) after one or more compilation errors had already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up. =item \1 better written as $1 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if there are more than 9 backreferences. =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See L for more on portability concerns. =item bind() on closed socket %s (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See L. =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened. Check you control flow and number of arguments. =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable. =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copyable. =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name, which provides a race condition that breaks security. =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown. =item Callback called exit (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv() exited by calling exit. =item %s() called too early to check prototype (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L. =item / cannot take a count (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See L. =item Can't bless non-reference value (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces" encapsulation of objects. See L. =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s" (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined in it, let alone methods. See L. =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something like this will reproduce the error: $BADREF = undef; process $BADREF 1,2,3; $BADREF->process(1,2,3); =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an object reference until it has been blessed. See L. =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name. Something like this will reproduce the error: $BADREF = 42; process $BADREF 1,2,3; $BADREF->process(1,2,3); =item Can't chdir to %s (F) You called C, but C is not a directory that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist. =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid. =item Can't coerce array into hash (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0. =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't say things like: *foo += 1; You CAN say $foo = *foo; $foo += 1; but then $foo no longer contains a glob. =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. =item Can't create pipe mailbox (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas or other plumbing problems. =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s" (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended for other types of variables in future. =item Can't declare %s in "%s" (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names. =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored. =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason. =item Can't do inplace edit without backup (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some such. =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored. =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L. =item Can't do setegid! (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of suidperl. =item Can't do seteuid! (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason. =item Can't do setuid (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it. =item Can't do waitpid with flags (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid() without flags is emulated. =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line. =item Can't exec "%s": %s (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.) =item Can't exec %s (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere. =item Can't execute %s (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found in the PATH did not have correct permissions. =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s" (F) A string of a form C was given to prototype(), but there is no builtin with the name C. =item Can't find %s character property "%s" (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property (remember that the names of character properties consist only of alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C or C prefix? =item Can't find label %s (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible for us to go to. See L. =item Can't find %s on PATH (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found in the PATH. =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it. =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis: print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.); If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters. =item Can't find %s property definition %s (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see L for the list of known properties. If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until possible C<\E>). =item Can't fork (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline. =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer? (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine knows about the Perl C operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.) =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use. =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer. =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L. =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no. See L. =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.) =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See L. =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless. =item Can't "last" outside a loop block (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block, except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L. =item Can't localize lexical variable %s (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the package name. =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>. =item Can't localize through a reference (F) You said something like C, which Perl can't currently handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure that $ref will still be a reference. =item Can't locate %s (F) You said to C (or C, or C) a file that couldn't be found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L and L. =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C the file, say, by doing C. =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular method, nor does any of its base classes. See L. =item Can't locate PerlIO%s (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist, e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile"). =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?) (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means that a method requires a package that has not been loaded. =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem to exist. =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS. =item Can't modify %s in %s (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to change it, such as with an auto-increment. =item Can't modify nonexistent substring (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed a NULL. =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as such, see L. =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive buffer. =item Can't "next" outside a loop block (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L. =item Can't open %s: %s (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >> filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on the command line. =item Can't open a reference (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing, using the 3-arg open() syntax : open FH, '>', $ref; but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of open is not supported. =item Can't open bidirectional pipe (W pipe) You tried to say C, which is not supported. You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using ">", and then read it in under a different file handle. =item Can't open error file %s as stderr (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on the command line for writing. =item Can't open input file %s as stdin (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the command line for reading. =item Can't open output file %s as stdout (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on the command line for writing. =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s) (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout. =item Can't open perl script%s: %s (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason. =item Can't read CRTL environ (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ or define F (see L) so that environ is not searched. =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do this, you should write C instead of C. =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L. =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified file. The file was left unmodified. =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because you don't have write permission to the directory. =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed. =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s' (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If method name is C, this is an internal error. =item Can't reswap uid and euid (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of suidperl. =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This is not allowed. =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in list context. =item Can't return outside a subroutine (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L. =item Can't stat script "%s" (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it open already. Bizarre. =item Can't swap uid and euid (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of suidperl. =item Can't take log of %g (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the negative numbers. =item Can't take sqrt of %g (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that. =item Can't undef active subroutine (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can, however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure. =item Can't unshift (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such as the main Perl stack. =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message indicates that such a conversion was attempted. =item Can't upgrade to undef (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code calling sv_upgrade. =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors. =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup (P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous for example by undefining stashes: C. =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references are disallowed. See L. =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values. =item Can't use %s for loop variable (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach. =item Can't use global %s in "my" (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but weren't. =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons. You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator, and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the lexical variable. =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to test the type of the reference, if need be. =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references are disallowed. See L. =item Can't use subscript on %s (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable. =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead. =item Can't weaken a nonreference (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only references can be weakened. =item Can't x= to read-only value (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself. Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that. =item Character in "C" format wrapped (W pack) You said pack("C", $x) where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC, and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant pack("C", $x & 255) If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format instead. =item Character in "c" format wrapped (W pack) You said pack("c", $x) where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC, and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant pack("c", $x & 255); If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format instead. =item close() on unopened filehandle %s (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened. =item %s: Command not found (A) You've accidentally run your script through B instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself. =item Compilation failed in require (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C statement. Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately. =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C) rather than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L for information on I.) =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast() function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock. =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal() function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock. =item connect() on closed socket %s (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See L. =item Constant(%s)%s: %s (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding C or C pragma? See L and L. =item Constant is not %s reference (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C pragma) is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value. See L and L. =item Constant subroutine %s redefined (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for inlining. See L for commentary and workarounds. =item Constant subroutine %s undefined (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for inlining. See L for commentary and workarounds. =item Copy method did not return a reference (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L. =item CORE::%s is not a keyword (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords. =item corrupted regexp pointers (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular expression compiler gave it. =item corrupted regexp program (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a valid magic number. =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure. =item C<-p> destination: %s (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p> command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've redirected it with select().) =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead. =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s" (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which case it indicates something else. =item defined(@array) is deprecated (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an undefined I value. If you want to see if the array is empty, just use C for example. =item defined(%hash) is deprecated (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an undefined I value. If you want to see if the hash is empty, just use C for example. =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>. =item Delimiter for here document is too long (F) In a here document construct like C<<, the label C is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code that triggers this error. =item Did not produce a valid header See Server error. =item %s did not return a true value (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would do. See L. =item (Did you mean &%s instead?) (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such. =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?) (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which seems superfluous. =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?) (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away. =item Died (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C) or you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty. =item Document contains no data See Server error. =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not define a C<$VERSION.> =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s' (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed. =item do_study: out of memory (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead. =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?) (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration. =item dump() better written as CORE::dump() (W misc) You used the obsolescent C built-in function, without fully qualifying it as C. Maybe it's a typo. See L. =item Duplicate free() ignored (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had already been freed. =item elseif should be elsif (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is unlikely to be what you want. =item Empty %s (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as described in L and L. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in a regular expression without specifying the property name. =item entering effective %s failed (F) While under the C pragma, switching the real and effective uids or gids failed. =item Error converting file specification %s (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat. =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe. See L, and L. =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See L. =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C pragma is in effect. See L. =item Excessively long <> operator (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a variable and glob that. =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system (F) The C function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L. =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails. =item Exiting eval via %s (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control statement. =item Exiting format via %s (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control statement. =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control statement. See L. =item Exiting subroutine via %s (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control statement. =item Exiting substitution via %s (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement. =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main) (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage'); =item %s: Expression syntax (A) You've accidentally run your script through B instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself. =item %s failed--call queue aborted (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such routines has been prematurely ended. =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L. =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of the Perl source code is distressed. =item fcntl is not implemented (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a PDP-11 or something? =item Filehandle %s opened only for input (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L. The warning will also occur if STDOUT (file descriptor 1) or STDERR (file descriptor 2) is opened for input, this is a pre-emptive warning in case some other part of your program or a child process is expecting STDOUT and STDERR to be writable. This can happen accidentally if you C or STDERR and then C an unrelated handle which will resuse the lowest numbered available descriptor. =item Filehandle %s opened only for output (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L. The warning will also occur if STDIN (file descriptor 0) is opened for output - this is a pre-emptive warning in case some other part of your program or a child process is expecting STDIN to be readable. This can happen accidentally if you C and then C an unrelated handle which will resuse the lowest numbered available descriptor. =item Final $ should be \$ or $name (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the name. =item Final @ should be \@ or @name (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the name. =item flock() on closed filehandle %s (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the same name? =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L. =item Format not terminated (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got to the end of your file without finding such a line. =item Format %s redefined (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say { no warnings 'redefine'; eval "format NAME =..."; } =item Found = in conditional, should be == (W syntax) You said if ($foo = 123) when you meant if ($foo == 123) (or something like that). =item %s found where operator expected (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon. =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s" (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed. =item gethostent not implemented (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname on the Internet. =item get%sname() on closed socket %s (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call? =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s" (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C underlying the C operator returned an invalid UIC. =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See L. =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable is in (using "::"). =item glob failed (%s) (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g. C); otherwise, make them all empty (except that C should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl. =item Glob not terminated (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than". =item Got an error from DosAllocMem (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway. =item goto must have label (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an unspecified destination. See L. =item %s-group starts with a count (F) In pack/unpack a ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group. =item %s had compilation errors (F) The final summary message when a C fails. =item Had to create %s unexpectedly (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump. =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s() (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This is now heavily deprecated. =item %s has too many errors (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors. Further error messages would likely be uninformative. =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See L for more on portability concerns. =item Identifier too long (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations. =item Illegal binary digit %s (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number. =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit. =item Illegal character %s (carriage return) (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk to your Perl administrator. =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \. =item Illegal division by zero (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input. =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped before the illegal character. =item Illegal modulus zero (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers don't take to this kindly. =item Illegal number of bits in vec (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that). =item Illegal octal digit %s (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number. =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number. Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9. =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the following switches: B<-[DIMUdmtw]>. =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s" (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored. =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s| (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was ignored. =item (in cleanup) %s (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being repeated. Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C flag could also result in this warning. See L. =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF). =item Insecure dependency in %s (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like. The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L for more information. =item Insecure directory in %s (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world. See L. =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>, C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L. =item Integer overflow in %s number (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent operations. =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times you've called C and C, to determine whether the current call to C should affect the current script or a subprocess (see L). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating this C as a request to terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command. =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. =item %s (...) interpreted as function (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See L. =item Invalid %s attribute: %s The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L. =item Invalid %s attributes: %s The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L. =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s" (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See L. =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only up to C. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L. =item Invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum character greater than the maximum character. See L. =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon. See L. =item Invalid type in pack: '%s' (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L. (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently ignored. =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s' (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L. (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently ignored. =item ioctl is not implemented (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty strange for a machine that supports C. =item ioctl() on unopened %s (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened. Check you control flow and number of arguments. =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality, neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK). =item `%s' is not a code reference (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine. =item `%s' is not an overloadable type (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of. =item junk on end of regexp (P) The regular expression parser is confused. =item Label not found for "last %s" (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See L. =item Label not found for "next %s" (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See L. =item Label not found for "redo %s" (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See L. =item leaving effective %s failed (F) While under the C pragma, switching the real and effective uids or gids failed. =item listen() on closed socket %s (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See L. =item lstat() on filehandle %s (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat() instead on the filehandle.) =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See L. =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form prefix1;prefix2 or prefix1 prefix2 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C is indeed a prefix of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L. =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run when the function is called. =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s) Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules. One possible cause is that you read in data that you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit data). Another possibility is careless use of utf8::upgrade(). =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate. =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L. =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is "use" or "my". =item % may only be used in unpack (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way. See L. =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L. =item Method %s not permitted See Server error. =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually ended earlier on the current line. =item Misplaced _ in number (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not separate two digits. =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{} (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within double-quotish context. =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them. =item Missing command in piped open (W pipe) You used the C or C construction, but the command was missing or blank. =item Missing name in "my sub" (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they have a name with which they can be found. =item Missing $ on loop variable (F) Apparently you've been programming in B too much. Variables are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from one line to the next. =item (Missing operator before %s?) (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma. =item Missing right brace on %s (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>. =item Missing right curly or square bracket (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last editing. =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?) (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on the previous line just because you saw this message. =item Modification of a read-only value attempted (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is: sub mod { $_[0] = 1 } mod(2); Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string. Yet another way is to assign to a C loop I when I is aliased to a constant in the look I: $x = 1; foreach my $n ($x, 2) { $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2 } =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array backwards. =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't be created for some peculiar reason. =item Module name must be constant (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use". =item Module name required with -%c option (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but you omitted the name of the module. Consult L for full details about C<-M> and C<-m>. =item More than one argument to open (F) The C function has been asked to open multiple files. This can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode. See L for details. =item msg%s not implemented (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system. =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C. =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z* (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string, Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*. See L. =item / must be followed by a, A or Z (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked. See L. =item / must follow a numeric type (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification. See L. =item "my sub" not yet implemented (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that yet. =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local() if you want to localize a package variable. =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C declaration is provided for this purpose. =item Negative length (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine. =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context (F) When C is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be greater than or equal to zero. =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/ (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L. =item %s never introduced (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope before it could possibly have been used. =item No %s allowed while running setuid (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable. See L. =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user. =item No comma allowed after %s (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments. Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments. One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a constant to your name space with B or B while no such importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see L and L. While an explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import list of B or B or in the constant name at the line where this error was triggered? =item No command into which to pipe on command line (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command. =item No DB::DB routine defined (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right. =item No dbm on this machine (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L. =item No DBsub routine (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each ordinary subroutine call. =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr. =item No input file after < on command line (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file from which to read data for stdin. =item No #! line (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line even on machines that don't support the #! construct. =item "no" not allowed in expression (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns no useful value. See L. =item No output file after > on command line (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout. =item No output file after > or >> on command line (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout. =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our" (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our" declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions. =item No Perl script found in input (F) You called C, but no line was found in the file beginning with #! and containing the word "perl". =item No setregid available (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for your system. =item No setreuid available (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for your system. =item No space allowed after -%c (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces. =item No %s specified for -%c (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but you haven't specified one. =item No such class %s (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program. =item No such pipe open (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle. =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to array indices for that to work. =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma. =item No such signal: SIG%s (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized. Say C in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system. =item Not a CODE reference (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See also L. =item Not a format reference (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist. =item Not a GLOB reference (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L. =item Not a HASH reference (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L. =item Not an ARRAY reference (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L. =item Not a perl script (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must mention perl. =item Not a SCALAR reference (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L. =item Not a subroutine reference (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See also L. =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L. =item Not enough arguments for %s (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified. =item Not enough format arguments (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied. See L. =item %s: not found (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself. =item %s not allowed in length fields (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if C