Chapter 33. Diagnostic Messages

These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of desperation):

The majority of messages from the first three classifications above (W, D, and S) can be controlled using the warnings pragma or the -w and -W switches. If a message can be controlled by the warnings pragma, its warning category is given after the classification letter; for example, (W misc) indicates a miscellaneous warning. The warnings pragma is described in Chapter 31, "Pragmatic Modules".

Warnings may be captured rather than printed by setting $SIG{__WARN__} to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning. You can also capture control before a trappable error "dies" by setting $SIG{__DIE__} to a subroutine reference, but if you don't call die within the handler, the exception is still thrown when you return from it. In other words, you're not allowed to "de-fatalize" an exception that way. You must use eval for that.

Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled with the warnings pragma or the -X switch.

In the following messages, %s stands for an interpolated string that is determined only when the message is generated. (Similarly, %d stands for an interpolated number--think printf formats, but we use %d to mean a number in any base here.) Note that some messages begin with %s--which means that listing them alphabetically is problematical. You should search among these messages if the one you are looking for does not appear in the expected place. The symbols "%-?@ sort before alphabetic characters, while [ and \ sort after.

If you decide a bug is a Perl bug and not your bug, you should try to reduce it to a minimal test case and then report it with the perlbug program that comes with Perl.

"%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s

(W misc) A my or our variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are destroyed.

"my sub" not yet implemented

(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that yet.

"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 in front. Use local if you want to localize a package variable.

"no" not allowed in expression

(F) The no keyword is recognized and executed at compile time and returns no useful value.

"our" variable %s redeclared

(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before in the current lexical scope.

"use" not allowed in expression

(F) The use keyword is recognized and executed at compile time and returns no useful value.

'!' allowed only after types %s

(F) The '!' is allowed in pack and unpack only after certain types.

'|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line

(F) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command-line redirection. It found that STDIN was a pipe and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using <. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.

'|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line

(F) This is 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 that splits the output into two streams, such as:

open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
while (<STDIN>) {
    print;
    print OUT;
}
close OUT;

/ 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.

/ 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.

/ 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*.

/ must follow a numeric type

(F) You had an unpack template that contained a #, but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.

% 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.

Repeat count in pack overflows

(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your signed integers.

Repeat count in unpack overflows

(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your signed integers.

/%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through

(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination that is not recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a '-delimited regular expression. The character was understood literally.

/%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through

(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination that is not recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was understood literally.

/%s/ should probably be written as "%s"

(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string, as in the first argument to join. Perl will treat the true or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is probably not what you had in mind.

%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.

%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.

%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]

%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"}

%s argument is not a subroutine name

(F) The argument to exists for exists &sub must be a subroutine name, and not a subroutine call. exists &sub() will generate this error.

%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.

%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.

%s had compilation errors

(F) The final summary message when a perl -c fails.

%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.

%s matches null string many times

(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that.

%s never introduced

(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope before it could possibly have been used.

%s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s

(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.

%s syntax OK

(F) The final summary message when a perl -c succeeds.

%s: Command not found

(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself with perl scriptname.

%s: Expression syntax

(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself with perl scriptname.

%s: Undefined variable

(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself with perl scriptname.

%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 Perl yourself with perl scriptname.

(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 G_KEEPERR flag could also result in this warning. See perlcall(1).

(Missing semicolon on previous line?)

(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%sfound where operator expected." Don't automatically put a semicolon on the previous line just because you saw this message.

-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.

-T and -B not implemented on filehandles

(F) Perl can't peek at the standard I/O buffer of filehandles when it doesn't know about your kind of standard I/O. You'll have to use a filename instead.

-p destination: %s

(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the -p command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've redirected it with select.)

500 Server error

See Server error.

?+* follows nothing in regexp

(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you meant it literally.

@ outside of string

(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside the string being unpacked.

<> should be quotes

(F) You wrote require <file> when you should have written require 'file'.

\1 better written as $1

(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the righthand 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 nine backreferences.

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?

Allocation too large: %lx

(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.

Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)

(W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///) 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.

Arg too short for msgsnd

(F) msgsnd requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).

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, pair of parentheses, or declaration.

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 built-in 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 use subs pragma).

To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the CORE:: prefix on the operator (e.g., CORE::log($x)) or declare the subroutine to be an object method.

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 -w -U into -wU.

Argument "%s" isn't numeric

(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.

Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()

(D deprecated) Really old Perls let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This is now heavily deprecated.

assertion botched: %s

(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.

Assertion failed: file "%s"

(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.

Assignment to both a list and a scalar

(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the second and third arguments must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise, Perl won't know which context to supply to the right side.

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.

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 message indicates that someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string that can no longer be found in the table.

Attempt to free temp prematurely

(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the internal free_tmps routine. This message 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.

Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers

(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.

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.

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.

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 template of 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 template of pack to avoid this warning.

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.

Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d

(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl, semctl or shmctl. In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively, sizeof(struct msqid_ds *), sizeof(struct semid_ds *), and sizeof(struct shmid_ds *).

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.

Bad free() ignored

(S malloc) An internal routine called free on something that had never been malloced in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by setting environment variable PERL_BADFREE to 1.

This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard" dynamic linking, like AIX and OS/2. It's a bug in Berkeley DB.

Bad hash

(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.

Bad index while coercing array into hash

(F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0th element of a pseudohash is not legal. Index values must be 1 or greater.

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";

Bad realloc() ignored

(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc on something that had never been malloced in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by setting environment variable PERL_BADFREE to 1.

Bad symbol for array

(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that wasn't a symbol table entry.

Bad symbol for filehandle

(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that wasn't a symbol table entry.

Bad symbol for hash

(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that wasn't a symbol table entry.

Badly placed ()'s

(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself with perl scriptname.

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?

Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package

(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form Foo::, but the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?

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 strict pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.

BEGIN failed--compilation aborted

(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.

BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted

(F) Perl found a BEGIN subroutine (or a use directive, which implies a BEGIN) after one or more compilation errors had already occurred. Since the intended environment for the BEGIN could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.

Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable

(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4,294,967,295) and therefore nonportable between systems.

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?

Bit vector size > 32 non-portable

(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is nonportable.

Bizarre copy of %s in %s

(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.

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.

Callback called exit

(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv exited by calling exit.

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.

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.

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, nor does 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.

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, nor does 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.

Can't read CRTL environ

(S) This is 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 PERL_ENV_TABLES (see perlvms(1)) so that the environ array is not searched.

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, nor does 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.

Can't bless non-reference value

(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces" encapsulation of objects.

Can't break at that line

(S internal) This warning is intended to be printed only while running within the debugger, indicating the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could be stopped at.

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.

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.

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 that 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);

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);

Can't chdir to %s

(F) You called perl -x/foo/bar, but /foo/bar is not a directory that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.

Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid

(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.

Can't coerce %s to integer in %s

(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular 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.

Can't coerce %s to number in %s

(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular symbol table entries (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.

Can't coerce %s to string in %s

(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular symbol table entries (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.

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.

Can't create pipe mailbox

(P) This is an error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas or other plumbing problems.

Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"

(S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class qualifier in a my or our declaration. The semantics may be extended for other types of variables in future.

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.

Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s

(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.

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 -i.bak, or some such.

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 -i switch. The file was ignored.

Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file

(S inplace) You tried to use the -i switch on a special file, such as a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.

Can't do setegid!

(P) The setegid call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of suidperl.

Can't do seteuid!

(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.

Can't do setuid

(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to execsuidperl 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 not.

Can't do waitpid with flags

(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid or wait4, so only waitpid without flags is emulated.

Can't do {n,m} with n > m

(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your regexp to match something 0 times, just use {0}.

Can't emulate -%s on #! line

(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point. For example, it would be kind of silly to put a -x on the #! line.

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 $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.)

Can't exec %s

(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's what the #! line said to do. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to mention perl on the #! line somewhere.

Can't execute %s

(F) You used the -S switch, but the copies of the script to execute found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.

Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH

(F) You used the -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.

Can't find %s on PATH

(F) You used the -S switch, but the script to execute could not be found in the PATH.

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.

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.

Can't fork

(F) A fatal error occurred trying to fork.

Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?

(S) This warning is 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 if you have made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat routine, this won't work 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 stat 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.)

Can't get pipe mailbox device name

(P) This error is peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.

Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF

(P) This error is peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your mailbox buffers to be, and it didn't get an answer.

Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine

(F) The deeply magical gotoSUBROUTINE 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.

Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string

(F) The gotoSUBROUTINE call can't be used to jump out of an eval string. (You can use it to jump out of an evalBLOCK, but you probably don't want to.)

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.

Can't localize through a reference

(F) You said something like local $$ref, 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.

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.

Can't localize pseudohash element

(F) You said something like local $ar->{'key'}, where $ar is a reference to a pseudohash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element directly--local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}].

Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC

(F) A function (or method) was called in a package that allows autoloading, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to AutoSplit the file, say, by doing make install.

Can't locate %s

(F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless the filename 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.

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.

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.

Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system

(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.

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 autoincrement.

Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call

(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as such.

Can't modify nonexistent substring

(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr was handed a NULL.

Can't msgrcv to read-only var

(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive buffer.

Can't open %s: %s

(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the <> filehandle, either implicitly under the -n or -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.

Can't open bidirectional pipe

(W pipe) You tried to say open(CMD, "|cmd|"), which is not supported. You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as IPC::Open2. Alternatively, direct the pipe's output to a file using >, and then read it in under a different filehandle.

Can't open error file %s as stderr

(F) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command-line redirection, and it couldn't open the file specified after 2> or 2>> on the command line for writing.

Can't open input file %s as stdin

(F) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command-line redirection, and it couldn't open the file specified after < on the command line for reading.

Can't open output file %s as stdout

(F) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command-line redirection, and it couldn't open the file specified after > or >> on the command line for writing.

Can't open output pipe (name: %s)

(P) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command-line redirection, and it couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for STDOUT.

Can't open perl script "%s": %s

(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.

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 sort { &func } @x instead of sort func @x.

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.

Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file

(S inplace) The rename done by the -i switch failed for some reason, probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.

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.

Can't reswap uid and euid

(P) The setreuid call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of suidperl.

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.

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.

Can't stat script "%s"

(P) For some reason, you can't fstat the script even though you have it open already. Bizarre.

Can't swap uid and euid

(P) The setreuid call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of suidperl.

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.

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.

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.

Can't unshift

(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such as the main Perl stack.

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.

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.

Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available

(F) The first time the %! hash is used, Perl automatically loads the Errno module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to provide symbolic names for $! errno values.

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.

Bad evalled substitution pattern

(F) You've used the /e 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 }.

Can't use %s for loop variable

(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Can't weaken a nonreference

(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only references can be weakened.

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 variable, and repeat that.

Can't find an opnumber for "%s"

(F) A string of a form CORE::word was given to prototype, but there is no built-in with the name word.

Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'

(F|P) An error occurred when resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If the method name is ???, this is an internal error.

Character class [:%s:] unknown

(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.

Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes

(W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go inside character classes, for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that the [= =] and [. .] constructs are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions.

Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions

(W regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]), the syntax beginning with [. and ending with .] is reserved for future extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: \[. and .\].

Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions

(W regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]), the syntax beginning with [= and ending with =] is reserved for future extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: \[= and =\].

chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0

(W chmod) A novice will sometimes say:

chmod 777, $filename

not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.

Close on unopened file <%s>

(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.

Compilation failed in require

(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a require statement. Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.

Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded

(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations where backtracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32,766, 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 while) rather than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less.

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?

Constant is not %s reference

(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the use constant 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.

Constant subroutine %s redefined

(S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine that had previously been eligible for inlining.

Constant subroutine %s undefined

(W misc) You undefined a subroutine that had previously been eligible for inlining.

constant(%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 \N{...} escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding overload or charnames pragma?

Copy method did not return a reference

(F) The method that overloads = is buggy.

CORE::%s is not a keyword

(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.

Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx

(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.

corrupted regexp pointers

(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular expression compiler gave it.

corrupted regexp program

(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a valid magic number.

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.

defined(@array) is deprecated

(D deprecated) defined is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an undefined scalar value. If you want to see if the array is empty, just use if (@array) { # not empty }.

defined(%hash) is deprecated

(D deprecated) defined is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an undefined scalar value. If you want to see if the hash is empty, just use if (%hash) { # not empty }.

Delimiter for here document is too long

(F) In a here document construct like <<FOO, the label FOO is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code that triggers this error.

Did not produce a valid header

See Server error.

(Did you mean &%s instead?)

(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.

(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.

(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.

Died

(F) You passed die an empty string (the equivalent of die "") or you called it with no args and both $@ and $_ were empty.

(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.

Document contains no data

See Server error.

Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'

(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.

do_study: out of memory

(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc instead.

Duplicate free() ignored

(S malloc) An internal routine called free on something that had already been freed.

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.

%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.

entering effective %s failed

(F) While under the use filetest pragma, switching the real and effective UIDs or GIDs failed.

Error converting file specification %s

(F) This is 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.

%s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression

(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression that contains the (?{ ... }) zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.

%s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'

(F) A regular expression contained the (?{ ... }) zero-width assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the use re 'eval' pragma is in effect.

%s: Eval-group not allowed at run time

(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the (?{ ... }) 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.

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 putting the filenames into a variable and globbing that.

Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors

(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.

Exiting eval via %s

(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a goto or a loop control statement.

Exiting format via %s

(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a goto or a loop control statement.

Exiting pseudoblock 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.

Exiting subroutine via %s

(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as a goto or a loop control statement.

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.

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, such as bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');

false [] range "%s" in regexp

(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not another character class like \d or [:alpha:]. The - in your false range is interpreted as a literal -. Consider quoting the - like this: \-.

Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d

(P) This is 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.

fcntl is not implemented

(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl. What is this, a PDP-11 or something?

Filehandle %s never opened

(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized. You need to do an open or a socket call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle module.

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 >>.

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 <.

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 add either the backslash or the name.

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 add either the backslash or the name.

flock() on closed filehandle %s

(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock got itself closed some time before now. Check your logic flow. flock operates on filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock on a dirhandle by the same name?

Format %s redefined

(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say:

{
    no warnings;
    eval "format NAME =...";
}

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.

Found = in conditional, should be ==

(W syntax) You said:

if ($foo = 123)

when you meant:

if ($foo == 123)

(or something like that).

gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"

(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.

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.

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?

getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"

(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to sys$getuai underlying the getpwnam operator returned an invalid UIC.

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?

glob failed (%s)

(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for glob and <*.c>. Usually, this means that you supplied a glob 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 core dump, 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., full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'); otherwise, make them all empty (except that d_csh should be 'undef') so that Perl will think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run ./Configure -S and rebuild Perl.

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 < symbol.

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 ::).

Got an error from DosAllocMem

(P) This is an error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete version of Perl, so this error should not happen anyway.

goto must have label

(F) Unlike with next or last, you're not allowed to goto an unspecified destination.

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.

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.

Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable

(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4,294,967,295) and therefore nonportable between systems.

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 $A::B). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.

Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"

(W internal) This is a warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal environ array and encountered an element without the = delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.

Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|

(W internal) This is 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.

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.

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.

Illegal modulus zero

(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers don't take to this kindly.

Illegal binary digit %s

(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.

Illegal octal digit %s

(F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.

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.

Illegal octal digit %s ignored

(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.

Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored

(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 through 9, A through F, or a through f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped before the illegal character.

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).

Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s

(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the following switches: -[DIMUdmw].

In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s

(F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first used at run time. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)

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 -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.

Insecure directory in %s

(F) You can't use system, exec, or a piped open in a setuid or setgid script if $ENV{PATH} contains a directory that is writable by the world.

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 $ENV{PATH}, $ENV{IFS}, $ENV{CDPATH}, $ENV{ENV}, or $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.

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 32-bit machines, the largest hex, 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.

Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks

(S) This is a warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times you've called fork and exec, to determine whether the current call to exec should affect the current script or a subprocess (see "exec LIST" in perlvms(1)). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating this exec as a request to terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.

internal disaster in regexp

(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.

internal urp in regexp at /%s/

(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.

Invalid %s attribute: %s

(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler.

Invalid %s attributes: %s

(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler.

invalid [] range "%s" in regexp

(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character greater than the maximum character.

Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"

(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.

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 parenthesized parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.

Invalid type in pack: '%s'

(F) The given character is not a valid pack type.

(W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type, but it used to be silently ignored.

Invalid type in unpack: '%s'

(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type.

(W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type, but it used to be silently ignored.

ioctl is not implemented

(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl, which is pretty strange for a machine that supports C.

junk on end of regexp

(P) The regular expression parser is confused.

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.

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.

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.

leaving effective %s failed

(F) While under the use filetest pragma, switching the real and effective UIDs or GIDs failed.

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?

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.

Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX

(F) This is an error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form:

prefix1;prefix2

or:

prefix1 prefix2

with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If prefix1 is indeed a prefix of a built-in library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See PERLLIB_PREFIX in the README.os2 file bundled with the Perl distribution.

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.

Method %s not permitted

See Server error.

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 the string eventually ended earlier on the current line.

Misplaced _ in number

(W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't at a 3-digit boundary.

Missing $ on loop variable

(F) Apparently, you've been programming in csh too much. Variables are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from one line to the next.

Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}

(F) You used the wrong syntax of character name literal \N{charname} within double-quotish context.

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.

Missing command in piped open

(W pipe) You used the open(FH, "| command") or open(FH, "command |") construction, but the command was missing or blank.

(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.

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.

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.

Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d

(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array backward.

Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"

(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.

Module name must be constant

(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a use.

msg%s not implemented

(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.

Multidimensional syntax %s not supported

(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like $foo[1,2,3]. They're written like $foo[1][2][3], as in C.

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.

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 our declaration is provided for this purpose.

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.

nested *?+ in regexp

(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.

Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, *?, +?, and ?? appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't.

No #! line

(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line even on machines that don't support the #! construct.

No %s allowed while running setuid

(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid script to even attempt. Generally speaking, there will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.

No -e allowed in setuid scripts

(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.

No %s specified for -%c

(F) The indicated command-line switch needs a mandatory argument, but you haven't specified one.

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 would be interpreted as just another argument.

One obscure situation where this message occurs is when you expect a constant to be imported into your namespace with use or import, but no such importing took place (say, because your operating system doesn't support that particular constant). You should have used an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see. An explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier. Or maybe there's just a typo in the name of the constant.

No command into which to pipe on command line

(F) This is 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.

No DB::DB routine defined

(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the -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.

No dbm on this machine

(P) This is counted as an internal error; every machine should supply a DBM nowadays because Perl comes with SDBM.

No DBsub routine

(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the -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.

No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line

(F) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command-line redirection, and found a 2> or a 2>> on the command line, but it can't find the name of the file to which to write data destined for STDERR.

No input file after < on command line

(F) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command-line redirection and found a < on the command line, but it can't find the name of the file from which to read data for STDIN.

No output file after > on command line

(F) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command-line redirection and found a lone > at the end of the command line, but it doesn't know where you wanted to redirect STDOUT.

No output file after > or >> on command line

(F) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command-line redirection and found a > or a >> on the command line, but it can't find the name of the file to which to write data destined for STDOUT.

No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"

(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in our declarations, because they don't make much sense under existing semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.

No Perl script found in input

(F) You called perl -x, but no line was found in the file beginning with #! and containing the word "perl".

No setregid available

(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid call for your system.

No setreuid available

(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid call for your system.

No space allowed after -%c

(F) The argument to the indicated command-line switch must follow immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.

No such pseudohash 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.

No such pseudohash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s

(F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable, but 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.

No such pipe open

(P) This is an error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose tried to close a pipe that hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.

No such signal: SIG%s

(W signal) The signal name you specified as a subscript to %SIG was not recognized. Say kill -l in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.

no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC

(S) This is a warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local time zone offset, so it assumes that the local system time and the UTC are equivalent. If they're not, define the logical name SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL to translate to the number of seconds that need to be added to UTC to get local time.

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.

Not a format reference

(F) We're not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous format, but this message indicates that you did and that it didn't exist.

Not a GLOB reference

(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a symbol table entry that looks like *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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

Not enough arguments for %s

(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.

Not enough format arguments

(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.

Null filename used

(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines that means the current directory!

Null picture in formline

(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture specification. The argument was found to be empty, which probably means you supplied it an uninitialized value.

NULL OP IN RUN

(P debugging) Some internal routine called run with a null opcode pointer.

Null realloc

(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.

NULL regexp argument

(P) The internal pattern-matching routines blew it big time.

NULL regexp parameter

(P) The internal pattern-matching routines are out of their gourd.

Number too long

(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g., 1e6 instead of 1_000_000).

Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable

(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4,294,967,295) and therefore nonportable between systems.

Octal number in vector unsupported

(F) Numbers with a leading 0 are not currently allowed in vectors. The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a future version.

Odd number of elements in hash assignment

(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which is odd because hashes come in key/value pairs.

Offset outside string

(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole exception to this rule is that sysreading past the buffer will extend the buffer and zero-pad the new area.

oops: oopsAV

(S internal) An internal warning indicating that the grammar is screwed up.

oops: oopsHV

(S internal) An internal warning indicating that the grammar is screwed up.

Operation `%s': no method found, %s

(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless the fallback overloading key is specified to be true.

Operator or semicolon missing before %s

(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call when the parser was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For example, if you accidentally say *foo*foo, it will be interpreted as if you'd said *foo * 'foo'.

Out of memory!

(X) Perl's internal malloc function returned 0, indicating that the remaining memory (or virtual memory) was insufficient to satisfy the request. Perl has no option but to exit immediately.

Out of memory for yacc stack

(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing, but realloc wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.

Out of memory during request for %s

(X|F) The malloc function returned 0, indicating that the remaining memory (or virtual memory) was insufficient to satisfy the request.

The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it depends on the way Perl was compiled. By default, it is not trappable. However, if compiled for this purpose, Perl may use the contents of $^M as an emergency pool after dieing with this message. In this case, the error is trappable once.

Out of memory during "large" request for %s

(F) Perl's internal malloc function returned 0, indicating that the remaining memory (or virtual memory) was insufficient to satisfy the request. However, the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.

Out of memory during ridiculously large request

(F) You can't allocate more than 2**31+"small amount" bytes. This error is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program (e.g., $arr[time] instead of $arr[$time]).

page overflow

(W io) A single call to write produced more lines than can fit on a page.

panic: ck_grep

(P) The program failed an internal consistency check while trying to compile a grep.

panic: ck_split

(P) The program failed an internal consistency check while trying to compile a split.

panic: corrupt saved stack index

(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there are in the savestack.

panic: del_backref

(P) The program failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak reference.

panic: die %s

(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context and then discovered it wasn't an eval context.

panic: do_match

(P) The internal pp_match routine was called with invalid operational data.

panic: do_split

(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.

panic: do_subst

(P) The internal pp_subst routine was called with invalid operational data.

panic: do_trans

(P) The internal do_trans routine was called with invalid operational data.

panic: frexp

(P) The library function frexp failed, making printf("%f") impossible.

panic: goto

(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label and then discovered it wasn't a context in which we know how to do a goto.

panic: INTERPCASEMOD

(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.

panic: INTERPCONCAT

(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.

panic: kid popen errno read

(F) The forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.

panic: last

(P) We popped the context stack to a block context and then discovered it wasn't a block context.

panic: leave_scope clearsv

(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.

panic: leave_scope inconsistency

(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an invalid enum on the top of it.

panic: malloc

(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.

panic: magic_killbackrefs

(P) The program failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak references to an object.

panic: mapstart

(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map function.

panic: null array

(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.

panic: pad_alloc

(P) The compiler got confused about which scratchpad it was allocating and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.

panic: pad_free curpad

(P) The compiler got confused about which scratchpad it was allocating and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.

panic: pad_free po

(P) An invalid scratchpad offset was detected internally.

panic: pad_reset curpad

(P) The compiler got confused about which scratchpad it was allocating and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.

panic: pad_sv po

(P) An invalid scratchpad offset was detected internally.

panic: pad_swipe curpad

(P) The compiler got confused about which scratchpad it was allocating and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.

panic: pad_swipe po

(P) An invalid scratchpad offset was detected internally.

panic: pp_iter

(P) The foreach iterator got called in a nonloop context frame.

panic: realloc

(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.

panic: restartop

(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it) but didn't supply the destination.

panic: return

(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context and then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.

panic: scan_num

(P) Perl's internal scan_num got called on something that wasn't a number.

panic: sv_insert

(P) The sv_insert routine was told to remove more string than there was string.

panic: top_env

(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.

panic: yylex

(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.

panic: %s

(P) An internal error.

Parentheses missing around "%s" list

(W parenthesis) You said something like:

my $foo, $bar = @_;

when you meant:

my ($foo, $bar) = @_;

Remember that my, our, and local bind tighter than the comma.

Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped

(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded, anyway?

PERL_SH_DIR too long

(F) This is an error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory that contains the sh shell. See PERL_SH_DIR in the README.os2 file bundled with the Perl distribution.

Permission denied

(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.

pid %x not a child

(W exec) This is a warning peculiar to VMS; waitpid was asked to wait for a process that isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS's perspective, it's probably not what you intended.

POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument

(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp, which takes no argument, unlike the BSD version, which takes a PID.

Possible Y2K bug: %s

(W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which could be a potential year 2000 problem.

Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list

(W qw) qw lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal strings, comment characters are not ignored but are instead treated as literal data. (You may have used delimiters other than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)

You probably wrote something like this:

@list = qw(
    a # a comment
    b # another comment
);

when you should have written this:

@list = qw(
    a
    b
);

If you really want comments, build your list the old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:

@list = (
    'a',    # a comment
    'b',    # another comment
);

Possible attempt to separate words with commas

(W qw) qw lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore, commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used delimiters other than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)

You probably wrote something like this:

qw( a, b, c );

which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:

qw( a b c );

Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument

(F) An ioctl or fcntl returned more than Perl was bargaining for. Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size but puts a sentinel byte at the end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted.

pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead

(W deprecated) You have written something like this:

sub doit
{
    use attrs qw(locked);
}

You should use the new declaration syntax instead:

sub doit : locked
{
    ...

The use attrs pragma is now obsolete and is only provided for backward compatibility.

Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)

(S precedence) The old irregular construct:

open FOO || die;

is now misinterpreted as:

open(FOO || die);

because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put parentheses around the filehandle or use the new or operator instead of ||.

Premature end of script headers

See Server error.

print() on closed filehandle %s

(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now. Check your logic flow.

printf() on closed filehandle %s

(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now. Check your logic flow.

Process terminated by SIG%s

(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while Unix applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2 port. One can easily disable this warning by setting appropriate signal handlers. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT" in the README.os2 file bundled with the Perl distribution.

Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s

(S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared or defined with a different function prototype.

Range iterator outside integer range

(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments of the range operator .. are outside the range that can be represented by integers internally. One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increments by prepending 0 to your numbers.

readline() on closed filehandle %s

(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now. Check your logic flow.

realloc() of freed memory ignored

(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc on something that had already been freed.

Reallocation too large: %lx

(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.

Recompile perl with -DDEBUGGING to use -D switch

(F debugging) You can't use the -D option unless the code to produce the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead, which is why it's currently left out of your copy.

Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'

(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. This probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.

Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'

(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while a method was invoked. This probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.

Reference found where even-sized list expected

(W misc) You gave a single reference when Perl was expecting a list with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually means that you used the anonymous hash constructor when you meant to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value pairs:

%hash = { one => 1, two => 2, };    # WRONG
%hash = [ qw( an anon array /)];    # WRONG
%hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, );    # right
%hash = qw( one 1 two 2 );          # also fine

Reference is already weak

(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak. Doing so has no effect.

Reference miscount in sv_replace()

(W internal) The internal sv_replace function was handed a new SV with a reference count of other than 1.

regexp *+ operand could be empty

(F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier could match an empty string.

regexp memory corruption

(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular expression compiler gave it.

regexp out of space

(P) This is a "can't happen" error, because safemalloc should have caught it earlier.

Reversed %s= operator

(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backward. The = must always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.

Runaway format

(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the 199th line. Apparently, you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust themselves either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables) or by shifting or popping (for array variables).

Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]

(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of an array. Generally, it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference is that $foo[&bar] always behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while @foo[&bar] behaves like a list when you assign to it and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.

On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you.

Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}

(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of a hash. Generally, it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference is that $foo{&bar} always behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while @foo{&bar} behaves like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.

On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you.

Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl

(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.

Search pattern not terminated

(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{} construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting levels. Omitting the leading $ from a variable $m may cause this error.

%sseek() on unopened file

(W unopened) You tried to use the seek or sysseek function on a filehandle that either was never opened or has since been closed.

select not implemented

(F) This machine doesn't implement the select system call.

sem%s not implemented

(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.

semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string

(S internal) The internal newSVsv routine was called to duplicate a scalar that had previously been marked as free.

Semicolon seems to be missing

(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.

send() on closed socket %s

(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now. Check your logic flow.

Sequence (? incomplete

(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.

Sequence (?#... not terminated

(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed.

Sequence (?%s...) not implemented

(F) A proposed regular expression extension has reserved the character but has not yet been written.

Sequence (?%s...) not recognized

(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.

Server error

This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when you try to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most frequently seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method(something)not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".

This is a CGI error, not a Perl error.

You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following for more information:

http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html

You should also look at the Perl FAQ.

setegid() not implemented

(F) You tried to assign to $), but your operating system doesn't support the setegid system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't think so.

seteuid() not implemented

(F) You tried to assign to $>, but your operating system doesn't support the seteuid system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't think so.

setpgrp can't take arguments

(F) Your system has the setpgrp from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid, which takes a process ID and process group ID.

setrgid() not implemented

(F) You tried to assign to $(, but your operating system doesn't support the setrgid system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't think so.

setruid() not implemented

(F) You tried to assign to $<, but your operating system doesn't support the setruid system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't think so.

setsockopt() on closed socket %s

(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket call?

Setuid/gid script is writable by world

(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world, because the world might have written on it already.

shm%s not implemented

(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.

shutdown() on closed socket %s

(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.

SIG%s handler "%s" not defined

(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?

sort is now a reserved word

(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore. But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.

Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value

(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew it by not using <=> or cmp, or by not using them correctly.

Sort subroutine didn't return single value

(F) A sort comparison subroutine cannot return a list value with more or less than one element.

Split loop

(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)

Stat on unopened file >%s>

(W unopened) You tried to use the stat function (or an equivalent file test) on a filehandle that either was never opened or has since been closed.

Statement unlikely to be reached

(W exec) You did an exec with some statement after it other than a die. This is almost always an error, because exec never returns unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec in a block by itself.

Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression

(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match abc provided that it is followed by three repetitions of xyz is /abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/, not /abc(?=xyz){3}/.

Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'

(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to can may break this.

Subroutine %s redefined

(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say:

{
    no warnings;
    eval "sub name { ... }";
}

Substitution loop

(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)

Substitution pattern not terminated

(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{} construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting levels. Omitting the leading $ from variable $s may cause this error.

Substitution replacement not terminated

(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{} construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting levels. Omitting the leading $ from variable $s may cause this error.

substr outside of string

(W substr|F) You tried to reference a substr that pointed outside of a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of the string. This warning is fatal if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the lefthand side of an assignment or as a subroutine argument, for example).

suidperl is no longer needed since %s

(F) Your Perl was compiled with -DSETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.

switching effective %s is not implemented

(F) While under the use filetest pragma, we cannot switch the real and effective UIDs or GIDs.

syntax error

(F) This message probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:

syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected

(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.

System V %s is not implemented on this machine

(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with sem, shm, or msg but System V IPC is not implemented in your machine. (In some machines, the functionality can exist but may be unconfigured.)

syswrite() on closed filehandle %s

(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now. Check your logic flow.

Target of goto is too deeply nested

(F) You tried to use goto to reach a label that was too deeply nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.

tell() on unopened file

(W unopened) You tried to use the tell function on a filehandle that either was never opened or has since been closed.

Test on unopened file %s

(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't open. Check your logic.

That use of $[ is unsupported

(F) Assignment to $[ is now strictly circumscribed and interpreted as a compiler directive. You may say only one of:

$[ = 0;
$[ = 1;
...
local $[ = 0;
local $[ = 1;
...

This is to prevent the problem of one module inadvertently changing the array base out from under another module.

The %s function is unimplemented

The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according to the probings of Configure.

The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia

(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt function on your machine, probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they think the U.S. government thinks it's a secret or at least will continue to pretend that it is.

The stat preceding -l _ wasn't an lstat

(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.

This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)

This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)

(W internal) These are warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the internal setenv function. You'll need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine PERL_ENV_TABLES (see perlvms(1)) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to %ENV that produced the warning.

times not implemented

(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times. I suspect you're not running on Unix.

Too few args to syscall

(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall to specify the system call to call, silly dilly.

Too late for "-T" option

(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the -T option, but Perl was not invoked with -T in its command line. This is an error because by the time Perl discovers a -T in a script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.

If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #! mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by editing the #! line so that the -T option is a part of Perl's first argument: e.g., change perl -n -T to perl -T -n.

If the Perl script is being executed as perl scriptname, then the -T option must appear on the command line: perl -T scriptname.

Too late for "-%s" option

(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the -M or -m option. This is an error because -M and -m options are not intended for use inside scripts. Use a use declaration instead.

Too late to run %s block

(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper, when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are loading a file with require or do when you should be using use instead. Or perhaps you should put the require or do inside a BEGIN block.

Too many ('s

Too many )'s

(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.

Too many args to syscall

(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 arguments to syscall.

Too many arguments for %s

(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.

trailing \ in regexp

(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash it.

Transliteration pattern not terminated

(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][] or y/// or y[][] construct. Omitting the leading $ from variables $tr or $y may cause this error.

Transliteration replacement not terminated

(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][] construct.

truncate not implemented

(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that Configure knows about.

Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)

(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or @{EXPR}. Hashes must be %NAME or %{EXPR}. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the {EXPR} form as an explicit dereference.

umask: argument is missing initial 0

(W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222 because octal literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.

umask not implemented

(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function, and you tried to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).

Unable to create sub named "%s"

(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.

Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs

(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution contexts were entered and left.

Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores

(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many values were temporarily localized.

Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs

(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks were entered and left.

Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees

(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.

Undefined format "%s" called

(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in another package?

Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called

(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's in a different package?

Undefined subroutine &%s called

(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has since been undefined.

Undefined subroutine called

(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has since been undefined.

Undefined subroutine in sort

(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to have been defined yet.

Undefined top format "%s" called

(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in another package?

Undefined value assigned to typeglob

(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, such as *foo = undef. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean undef *foo.

unexec of %s into %s failed!

(F) The unexec routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF representative, who probably put it there in the first place.

Unknown BYTEORDER

(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.

Unknown open() mode '%s'

(F) The second argument of three-argument open is not in the list of valid modes: <, >, >>, +<, +>, +>>, -|, |-.

Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s

(P) This is an error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.

unmatched () in regexp

(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the matching parenthesis.

Unmatched right %s bracket

(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were last editing.

unmatched [] in regexp

(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.

Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word

(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.

Unrecognized character %s

(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.

Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through

(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination that is not recognized by Perl.

Unrecognized signal name "%s"

(F) You specified a signal name to the kill function that was not recognized. Say kill -l in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.

Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)

(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)

Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline

(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation failed, probably because the filename contained a newline, probably because you forgot to chop or chomp it off.

Unsupported directory function "%s" called

(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir and readdir.

Unsupported function fork

(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.

Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing the name you call Perl by to perl_, perl__, and so on.

Unsupported function %s

(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently. At least, Configure doesn't think so.

Unsupported socket function "%s" called

(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at least that's what Configure thought.

Unterminated <> operator

(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 < symbol.

Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list

(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash character to get your parentheses to balance.

Unterminated attribute list

(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute too soon.

Use of $# is deprecated

(D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined awk feature. Use an explicit printf or sprintf instead.

Use of $* is deprecated

(D deprecated) This variable magically activated multiline pattern matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should use the //m and //s modifiers now to do that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of $*.

Use of %s in printf format not supported

(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.

Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated

(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here document.

Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated

(D deprecated) You make a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a subroutine's argument list, so it's better to assign the results of a split explicitly to an array (or list).

Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated

(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, AUTOLOAD subroutines were looked up as methods (using the @ISA hierarchy) even when the subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g., Foo::bar()), not as methods (e.g., Foo->bar() or $obj->bar()).

This bug was rectified in Perl 5.005, which used method lookup only for methods' AUTOLOADs. However, a significant base of existing code may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl 5.004 issued this optional warning when nonmethods used inherited AUTOLOADs.

The simple rule is this: inheritance will not work when autoloading nonmethods. The simple fix for old code is this: in any module that used to depend on inheriting AUTOLOAD for nonmethods from a base class named BaseClass, execute *AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD during startup.

In code that currently says use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);, you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change use AutoLoader; to use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';.

Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated

(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of Perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine names by either adding an & prefix or using a package qualifier, e.g., &our() or Foo::our().

Use of %s is deprecated

(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended, generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has bad side effects.

Use of uninitialized value%s

(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.

Useless use of "re" pragma

(W) You did a use re without any arguments. That isn't very useful.

Useless use of %s in void context

(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value from a block or the left side of a scalar comma operator. For example, you'd get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said:

$one, $two = 1, 2;

when you meant to say:

($one, $two) = (1, 2);

Another common error is using ordinary parentheses to construct a list reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for example, if you say:

$array = (1,2);

when you should have said:

$array = [1,2];

The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value, while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which throws away the left argument, which is not what you want.

untie attempted while %d inner references still exist

(W untie) A copy of the object returned from tie (or tied) was still valid when untie was called.

Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()

(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), each, or readdir as a Boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the defined operator.

Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long

(W misc) This is a warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV element from a CLI symbol table and found a resultant string longer than 1,024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1,024 characters.

Variable "%s" is not imported%s

(F) While use strict in effect, you referred to a global variable that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the front of your variable.

Variable "%s" may be unavailable

(W closure) An inner (nested) anonymous subroutine is inside a named subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:

sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }

If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the first call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.

In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine anonymous, using the sub {} syntax. Perl has specific support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in between interferes with this feature.

Variable "%s" will not stay shared

(W closure) An inner (nested) named subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.

When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the first call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the variable will no longer be shared.

Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines will never share the given variable.

This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine anonymous, using the sub {} syntax. When inner anonymous subs that reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.

Variable syntax

(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.

Version number must be a constant number

(P) The attempt to translate a use Module n.n LIST statement into its equivalent BEGIN block found an internal inconsistency with the version number.

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.

(S) The whole warning message will look something like:

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
    perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
            LC_ALL = "En_US",
            LANG = (unset)
        are supported and installed on your system.
    perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").

(Which locale settings failed will vary.) This error means that Perl detected that you or your system administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, so the script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in perllocale(1), under the section "Locale Problems".

Warning: something's wrong

(W) You passed warn an empty string (the equivalent of warn ""), or you called it with no arguments and $_ was empty.

Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly

(S) The implicit close done by an open got an error indication on the close. This usually indicates your filesystem ran out of disk space.

Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous

(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a binary operator but could also be interpreted as a term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write:

rand + 5;

you may think you wrote the same thing as:

rand() + 5;

but in actual fact, you got:

rand(+5);

So use parentheses to say what you really mean.

write() on closed filehandle %s

(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now. Check your logic flow.

X outside of string

(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before the beginning of the string being unpacked.

x outside of string

(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after the end of the string being unpacked.

Xsub "%s" called in sort

(F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.

Xsub called in sort

(F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.

You can't use -l on a filehandle

(F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file, it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for. Use a filename instead.

YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!

(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around your script with the wrapsuid script in the eg directory of the Perl distribution.

You need to quote "%s"

(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it is what you want, put an & in front.)

32.47. User::pwent		Glossary

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