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-rw-r--r--pod/perldiag.pod985
1 files changed, 744 insertions, 241 deletions
diff --git a/pod/perldiag.pod b/pod/perldiag.pod
index 38edda1982..ea33f50f9f 100644
--- a/pod/perldiag.pod
+++ b/pod/perldiag.pod
@@ -12,17 +12,17 @@ desperation):
(S) A severe warning (mandatory).
(F) A fatal error (trappable).
(P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
- (X) A very fatal error (non-trappable).
+ (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
(A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
-be captured by setting C<$^Q> to a reference to a routine that will be
-called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
+be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
+will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
L<perlfunc/eval>.
Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
-just as in a printf format. Note that some message start with a %s!
+just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
=over 4
@@ -33,6 +33,14 @@ The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
if you want to localize a package variable.
+=item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
+
+(S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, 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.
+
=item "no" not allowed in expression
(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
@@ -45,23 +53,35 @@ no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
=item % may only be used in unpack
-(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, since the
+(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
=item %s (...) interpreted as function
(W) 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 parens. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
+by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
+found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
=item %s argument is not a HASH element
-(F) The argument to delete() or exists() must be a hash element, such as
+(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
+
+ $foo{$bar}
+ $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
+
+=item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
+
+(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
$foo{$bar}
$ref->[12]->{"susie"}
+or a hash slice, such as
+
+ @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
+ @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
+
=item %s did not return a true value
(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
@@ -76,11 +96,11 @@ sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
-=item %s had compilation errors.
+=item %s had compilation errors
(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
-=item %s has too many errors.
+=item %s has too many errors
(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
@@ -99,28 +119,28 @@ before it could possibly have been used.
(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
-=item %s: Command not found.
+=item %s: Command not found
(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
-of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
-into Perl yourself.
+of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
+Perl yourself.
-=item %s: Expression syntax.
+=item %s: Expression syntax
(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
-of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
-into Perl yourself.
+of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
+Perl yourself.
-=item %s: Undefined variable.
+=item %s: Undefined variable
(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
-of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
-into Perl yourself.
+of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
+Perl yourself.
=item %s: not found
-(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
-instead of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
+(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
+instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
into Perl yourself.
=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
@@ -144,7 +164,7 @@ if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
=item @ outside of string
-(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolution position outside
+(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
=item accept() on closed fd
@@ -154,7 +174,20 @@ the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
=item Allocation too large: %lx
-(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
+(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
+
+=item Allocation too large
+
+(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
+
+=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
+
+(W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and translation (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. See
+L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
=item Arg too short for msgsnd
@@ -164,14 +197,16 @@ the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
(W)(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, paren pair or declaration.
+a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
=item Args must match #! line
(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
-with match the arguments specified on the #! line.
+with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
+impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
+for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
-=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric
+=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
(W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
@@ -202,6 +237,13 @@ know which context to supply to the right side.
be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
of those arenas.
+=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
+
+(P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
+optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
+indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
+that can no longer be found in the table.
+
=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
(W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
@@ -223,17 +265,19 @@ could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
+=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
+
+(W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
+as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
+dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
+
=item 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 sized are, respectively,
-S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)> and
+shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
+S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
-=item Bad associative array
-
-(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
-
=item Bad filehandle: %s
(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
@@ -243,7 +287,17 @@ did it in another package.
=item Bad free() ignored
(S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
-malloc()ed in the first place.
+malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
+setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
+
+This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
+"hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
+C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
+system malloc().
+
+=item Bad hash
+
+(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
=item Bad name after %s::
@@ -274,17 +328,31 @@ wasn't a symbol table entry.
(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
wasn't a symbol table entry.
-=item Badly places ()'s
+=item Badly placed ()'s
(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
-of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
-into Perl yourself.
+of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
+Perl yourself.
+
+=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
+
+(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
+subroutine identifier, in curly braces or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
+Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
+=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
+
+(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
+implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
+already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
+could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
+likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
+
=item bind() on closed fd
(W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
@@ -299,30 +367,37 @@ the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
exited by calling exit.
+=item Can't "goto" outside a block
+
+(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
+like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
+occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
+is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
+
=item Can't "last" outside a 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. You can usually double the curlies to get the same
-effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
-that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
+"loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
+the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
+will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
=item Can't "next" outside a 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. You can usually double the curlies to get
-the same effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
-that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
+count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
+usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
+curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
=item Can't "redo" outside a 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. You can usually double the curlies to get
-the same effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
-that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
+count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
+usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
+curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
=item Can't bless non-reference value
@@ -331,7 +406,7 @@ encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
=item Can't break at that line
-(S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
+(S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
be stopped at.
@@ -343,7 +418,7 @@ in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
-(F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
+(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
@@ -367,7 +442,7 @@ that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
-(type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
+(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
say things like:
*foo += 1;
@@ -382,12 +457,12 @@ but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
-(type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
+(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
-(type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
+(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
=item Can't create pipe mailbox
@@ -396,7 +471,7 @@ or other plumbing problems.
=item Can't declare %s in my
-(F) Only scalar, array and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
+(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
@@ -405,11 +480,11 @@ They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
-(F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
-from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
+(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
+from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
such.
-=item Can't do inplace edit: %s > 14 characters
+=item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
(S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
@@ -441,7 +516,7 @@ your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
without flags is emulated.
-=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m
+=item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
@@ -453,7 +528,7 @@ For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
=item Can't exec "%s": %s
-(W) An system(), exec() or piped open call could not execute the named
+(W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
@@ -479,7 +554,7 @@ for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
-the closing delimiter was omitted. Since bracketed quotes count nesting
+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.)
@@ -498,7 +573,7 @@ assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
-routine, since the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
+routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
@@ -519,7 +594,7 @@ mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
-you should only be calling it out of an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
+you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
L<perlfunc/goto>.
=item Can't localize a reference
@@ -531,7 +606,7 @@ do a local.
=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
-(F) You used local on a variable name that was previous declared as a
+(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.
@@ -539,16 +614,16 @@ package name.
=item Can't locate %s in @INC
(F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
-in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
-the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
-or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
+in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set the
+PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library
+is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
-method, nor does any of it's base classes. See L<perlobj>.
+method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
@@ -563,16 +638,16 @@ a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
=item Can't modify %s in %s
(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
-change it, such as with an autoincrement.
+change it, such as with an auto-increment.
-=item Can't modify non-existent substring
+=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
a NULL.
-=item Can't msgrcv to readonly var
+=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
-(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable in order to be used as a receive
+(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
buffer.
=item Can't open %s: %s
@@ -584,25 +659,25 @@ Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
(W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
-"open2.pl". Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using ">",
+IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
and then read it in under a different file handle.
=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
-couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on the command line for
-writing.
+couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
+command line for writing.
=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
-couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the command line for reading.
+couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
-couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on the command line for
-writing.
+couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
+line for writing.
=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
@@ -613,6 +688,13 @@ couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
+=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
+
+(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
+pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
+was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
+this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
+
=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
(S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
@@ -645,7 +727,7 @@ of suidperl.
=item Can't take log of %g
-(F) Logarithms are only defined on positive real numbers.
+(F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
=item Can't take sqrt of %g
@@ -680,7 +762,7 @@ code calling sv_upgrade.
=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
-You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
+You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> 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.
@@ -699,10 +781,15 @@ test the type of the reference, if need be.
(W) 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 only valid as part of a regular expression pattern.
+to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
+=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
+
+(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
+are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
+
=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
@@ -711,17 +798,12 @@ are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
-be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
-
-=item Can't use delimiter brackets within expression
-
-(F) The ${name} construct is for disambiguating identifiers in strings, not
-in ordinary code.
+be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
=item Can't use global %s in "my"
(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
-not allowed, because the magic can only be tied to one location (namely
+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.
@@ -737,7 +819,7 @@ didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
(F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
-=item Can't x= to readonly value
+=item Can't x= to read-only value
(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
@@ -745,9 +827,15 @@ Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
=item Cannot open temporary file
-(F) The create routine failed for some reaon while trying to process
+(F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
+=item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
+
+(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
+opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
+package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
+
=item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
(W) A novice will sometimes say
@@ -757,15 +845,37 @@ a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
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.
-=item Close on unopened file <%s>
+=item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
(W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
+=item Compilation failed in require
+
+(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
+Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
+were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
+
=item connect() on closed fd
(W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
+=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
+
+(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
+inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
+workarounds.
+
+=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
+
+(S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
+inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
+workarounds.
+
+=item Copy method did not return a reference
+
+(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
+
=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
@@ -787,6 +897,12 @@ times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
case it indicates something else.
+=item Delimiter for here document is too long
+
+(F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
+C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
+twisted to write code that triggers this error.
+
=item Did you mean &%s instead?
(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
@@ -796,6 +912,11 @@ case it indicates something else.
(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
+=item Died
+
+(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
+you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
+
=item Do you need to predeclare %s?
(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
@@ -835,29 +956,42 @@ The interpreter is immediately exited.
=item Error converting file specification %s
-(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Since Perl may have to deal with file
+(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
-=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
+=item Excessively long <> operator
+
+(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
+Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
+filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
+variable and glob that.
+
+=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
=item Exiting eval via %s
-(W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
+(W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
a goto, or a loop control statement.
+=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
+
+(W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
+subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
+statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
+
=item Exiting subroutine via %s
-(W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as a
+(W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
a goto, or a loop control statement.
=item Exiting substitution via %s
-(W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as a
+(W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
@@ -878,19 +1012,21 @@ PDP-11 or something?
You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
the FileHandle package.
-=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
+=item Filehandle %s opened for only input
(W) 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 only
-intended to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
+"+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
+you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
+L<perlfunc/open>.
-=item Filehandle only opened for input
+=item Filehandle opened for only input
(W) 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 only
-intended to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
+"+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
+you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
+L<perlfunc/open>.
=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
@@ -962,8 +1098,8 @@ the line, and you really meant a "less than".
=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
-(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
-either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
+(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
+must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
=item goto must have label
@@ -982,11 +1118,40 @@ an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
(D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
is now heavily deprecated.
-=item Identifier "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
+=item Identifier too long
+
+(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
+about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
+names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
+versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
+
+=item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
+
+(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
+to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
+names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
+appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
+might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
+or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
+
+=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
+
+(F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
+error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
+multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
-(W) Typographical errors often show up as unique identifiers. If you
-had a good reason for having a unique identifier, then just mention it
-again somehow to suppress the message.
+Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
+either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
+transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
+properly converting the text file format.
+
+Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
+text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
+handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
+
+In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
+converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
+executed.
=item Illegal division by zero
@@ -1007,9 +1172,24 @@ don't take to this kindly.
(W) 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.
+=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
+
+(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
+following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
+
+=item 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 runtime. 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.)
+
=item Insecure dependency in %s
-(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
+(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
@@ -1020,21 +1200,33 @@ for more information.
=item Insecure directory in %s
(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
-script if $ENV{PATH} contains a directory that is writable by the world.
+script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
See L<perlsec>.
=item Insecure PATH
(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
-setgid script if $ENV{PATH} is derived from data supplied (or
+setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
+=item Integer overflow in hex number
+
+(S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
+architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
+0xFFFFFFFF.
+
+=item Integer overflow in octal number
+
+(S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
+architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
+037777777777.
+
=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
-of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, in order to determine
-whether the current call to C<exec> should be affect the current
+of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
+whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
@@ -1044,6 +1236,17 @@ and execute the specified command.
(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
+=item internal error: glob failed
+
+(P) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
+and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. This may mean that your csh (C shell) is
+broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
+config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
+were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
+empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
+think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
+C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
+
=item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
@@ -1053,6 +1256,19 @@ and execute the specified command.
(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
+=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
+
+(W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
+See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
+
+=item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
+
+(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
+
+=item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
+
+(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
+
=item ioctl is not implemented
(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
@@ -1085,20 +1301,10 @@ L<perlfunc/last>.
(W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
-=item Literal @%s now requires backslash
-
-(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 runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
-ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by putting 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.)
-
=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
-doesn't somehow point to a valid method. See L<perlovl>.
+doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
@@ -1112,8 +1318,8 @@ ended earlier on the current line.
=item 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
+(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<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.
=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
@@ -1141,7 +1347,7 @@ the previous line just because you saw this message.
=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
-constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", since the compiler
+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 }
@@ -1149,13 +1355,13 @@ catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
-=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
+=item Modification of noncreatable 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
backwards.
-=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
+=item Modification of noncreatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
(F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
be created for some peculiar reason.
@@ -1170,8 +1376,15 @@ be created for some peculiar reason.
=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
-(W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like $foo[1,2,3]. They're written
-like $foo[1][2][3], as in C.
+(W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
+like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
+
+=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
+
+(W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
+If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
+it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
+provided for just this purpose.
=item Negative length
@@ -1180,10 +1393,10 @@ that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
=item nested *?+ in regexp
-(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parens. So
+(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
+Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
=item No #! line
@@ -1208,10 +1421,22 @@ See L<perlsec>.
allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
+One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
+constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
+importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
+does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
+explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
+L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
+would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
+remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
+constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
+list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
+this error was triggered?
+
=item No command into which to pipe on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
-and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
+and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
want to pipe the output from this command.
=item No DB::DB routine defined
@@ -1226,7 +1451,7 @@ right.
=item No dbm on this machine
(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
-supply dbm nowadays, since Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
+supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
=item No DBsub routine
@@ -1235,29 +1460,29 @@ but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
ordinary subroutine call.
-=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
+=item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
-and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the
-file to which to write data destined for stderr.
+and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
+the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
-=item No input file after < on command line
+=item No input file after E<lt> on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
-and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file from
-which to read data for stdin.
+and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
+from which to read data for stdin.
-=item No output file after > on command line
+=item No output file after E<gt> on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
-and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither
-you wanted to redirect stdout.
+and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
+where you wanted to redirect stdout.
-=item No output file after > or >> on command line
+=item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
-and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the
-file to which to write data destined for stdout.
+and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
+name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
=item No Perl script found in input
@@ -1304,7 +1529,7 @@ format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
=item Not a GLOB reference
-(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "type glob" (that is,
+(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
@@ -1334,10 +1559,10 @@ subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
See also L<perlref>.
-=item Not a subroutine reference in %OVERLOAD
+=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
-doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<perlovl>.
+doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
=item Not an ARRAY reference
@@ -1356,9 +1581,15 @@ See L<perlform>.
=item Null filename used
-(F) You can't require the null filename, especially since on many machines
+(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
+=item Null picture in formline
+
+(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
+specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
+supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
+
=item NULL OP IN RUN
(P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
@@ -1369,16 +1600,30 @@ that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
=item NULL regexp argument
-(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it bigtime.
+(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
=item NULL regexp parameter
(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
+=item 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").
+
=item Odd number of elements in hash list
(S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
-since hash lists come in key/value pairs.
+because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
+
+=item 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 is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
+will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
=item oops: oopsAV
@@ -1388,10 +1633,13 @@ since hash lists come in key/value pairs.
(S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
-=item Operation `%s' %s: no method found,
+=item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
-(F) An attempt was made to use an entry in an overloading table that
-somehow no longer points to a valid method. See L<perlovl>.
+(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 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
+true. See L<overload>.
=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
@@ -1408,9 +1656,22 @@ but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
=item Out of memory!
-(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
+(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
remaining memory (or virtual memory) 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, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
+an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
+error is trappable I<once>.
+
+=item Out of memory during request for %s
+
+(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
+remaining memory (or virtual memory) 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.
+
=item page overflow
(W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
@@ -1450,6 +1711,10 @@ it wasn't an eval context.
(P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
+=item panic: frexp
+
+(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
+
=item panic: goto
(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
@@ -1470,7 +1735,7 @@ it wasn't a block context.
=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
-(P) A writable lexical variable became readonly somehow within the scope.
+(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
@@ -1556,7 +1821,7 @@ was string.
(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
-=item Parens missing around "%s" list
+=item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
(W) You said something like
@@ -1589,6 +1854,52 @@ perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
(F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
the BSD version, which takes a pid.
+=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
+
+(W) 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 different delimiters than the
+exclamation marks 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
+ );
+
+=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
+
+(W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
+aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
+delimiters 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 !;
+
=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
@@ -1606,9 +1917,10 @@ 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
-parens around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
+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 "||".
=item print on closed filehandle %s
@@ -1622,25 +1934,25 @@ Check your logic flow.
=item Probable precedence problem on %s
-(W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
+(W) 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;
-=item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
+=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
-(S) The subroutine being defined had a predeclared (forward) declaration
-with a different function prototype.
+(S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
+or defined with a different function prototype.
-=item Read on closed filehandle <%s>
+=item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
(W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
Check your logic flow.
=item Reallocation too large: %lx
-(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
+(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
@@ -1669,7 +1981,7 @@ expression compiler gave it.
=item regexp too big
-(F) The current implementation of regular expression uses shorts as
+(F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
@@ -1690,21 +2002,35 @@ shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
-(W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single value of
+(W) 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 $foo[&bar] always behaves like a scalar, both when
-assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while @foo[&bar] behaves
+The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
+assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@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 only expecting one subscript.
+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, since
+element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
+Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
+L<perlref>.
+
+=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
+
+(W) 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 $).
+The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
+assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@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. See
L<perlref>.
=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
-(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
+(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
=item Search pattern not terminated
@@ -1712,10 +2038,10 @@ or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
-=item seek() on unopened file
+=item %sseek() on unopened file
-(W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
-never opened or has been closed since.
+(W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
+was either never opened or has since been closed.
=item select not implemented
@@ -1743,7 +2069,7 @@ Check your logic flow.
=item Sequence (?#... not terminated
(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
-parenthesis. Embedded parens aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
+parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
@@ -1757,34 +2083,44 @@ See L<perlre>.
=item Server error
-Also known as "500 Server error". 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.
+Also known as "500 Server error".
+
+B<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/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
+ http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/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
=item setegid() not implemented
-(F) You tried to assign to $), and your operating system doesn't support
+(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
think so.
=item seteuid() not implemented
-(F) You tried to assign to $>, and your operating system doesn't support
+(F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
think so.
=item setrgid() not implemented
-(F) You tried to assign to $(, and your operating system doesn't support
+(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
think so.
=item setruid() not implemented
-(F) You tried to assign to $<, and your operating system doesn't support
+(F) You tried to assign to C<$<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
think so.
@@ -1801,7 +2137,7 @@ because the world might have written on it already.
(W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
-=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined.
+=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
(W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
put it into the wrong package?
@@ -1828,10 +2164,10 @@ or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
See L<perlfunc/split>.
-=item Stat on unopened file <%s>
+=item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
(W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
-on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
+on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
=item Statement unlikely to be reached
@@ -1841,6 +2177,12 @@ 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.
+=item 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 implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
+may break this.
+
=item Subroutine %s redefined
(W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
@@ -1854,8 +2196,8 @@ by itself.
(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
-input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
-L<perlop/"Quote and Quotelike Operators">.
+input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
+L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
=item Substitution pattern not terminated
@@ -1873,7 +2215,7 @@ construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
-=item suidperl is no longer needed since...
+=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
@@ -1893,7 +2235,7 @@ Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
-before this, since Perl is good at understanding random input.
+before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
@@ -1901,13 +2243,13 @@ if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
=item 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
+(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
+instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
into Perl yourself.
=item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
-(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm"
+(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
=item Syswrite on closed filehandle
@@ -1915,20 +2257,25 @@ or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
(W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
Check your logic flow.
+=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
+
+(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
+nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
+
=item tell() on unopened file
(W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
-never opened or has been closed since.
+never opened or has since been closed.
-=item Test on unopened file <%s>
+=item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
(W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
=item That use of $[ is unsupported
-(F) Assignment to $[ is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
-a compiler directive. You may only say one of
+(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
+a compiler directive. You may say only one of
$[ = 0;
$[ = 1;
@@ -1945,11 +2292,11 @@ out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
to the probings of Configure.
-=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
+=item 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. Govermnment thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
+think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
will deny it.
@@ -1969,17 +2316,39 @@ you're not running on Unix.
(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
system call to call, silly dilly.
+=item Too late for "B<-T>" option
+
+(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
+B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
+This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-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 B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
+first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
+
+If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
+B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
+
+=item Too late for "-%s" option
+
+(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
+B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
+are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
+
=item Too many ('s
=item Too many )'s
(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
-of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
-into Perl yourself.
+of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
+Perl yourself.
=item Too many args to syscall
-(F) Perl only supports a maximum of 14 args to syscall().
+(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
=item Too many arguments for %s
@@ -2008,13 +2377,13 @@ Configure knows about.
=item 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
+certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
+%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
=item umask: argument is missing initial 0
-(W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, since octal literals
+(W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
@@ -2078,13 +2447,13 @@ representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
=item Unknown BYTEORDER
-(F) There are no byteswapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
+(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
=item 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 paren. See L<perlre>.
+the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
=item Unmatched right bracket
@@ -2101,14 +2470,15 @@ See L<perlre>.
=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
-(W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
+(W) 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.
-=item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
+=item Unrecognized character %s
-(S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
-a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
+(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.
=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
@@ -2125,12 +2495,20 @@ supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
(W) 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. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
+because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
+=item 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 C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
+
=item Unsupported function %s
(F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
@@ -2141,40 +2519,46 @@ At least, Configure doesn't think so.
(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
least that's what Configure thought.
-=item Unterminated <> operator
+=item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> 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 "less than".
+=item Use of "$$<digit>" to mean "${$}<digit>" is deprecated
+
+(D) Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any type marker followed
+by "$" and a digit. For example, "$$0" was incorrectly taken to mean
+"${$}0" instead of "${$0}". This bug is (mostly) fixed in Perl 5.004.
+
+However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix this bug completely,
+because at least two widely-used modules depend on the old meaning of
+"$$0" in a string. So Perl 5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>" in the
+old (broken) way inside strings; but it generates this message as a
+warning. And in Perl 5.005, this special treatment will cease.
+
=item Use of $# is deprecated
-(D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined awk feature.
+(D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
=item Use of $* is deprecated
-(D) This variable magically turned on multiline pattern matching, both for
+(D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
-(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible only
-from C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
-
-=item Use of %s is deprecated
-
-(D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
-because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
-bad side effects.
+(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.
-=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
+=item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
(D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
-wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
+wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
=item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
@@ -2182,6 +2566,30 @@ wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
+=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
+
+(D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
+up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
+be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
+as methods (e.g. C<Foo->bar()> or C<$obj->bar()>).
+
+This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
+only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
+of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
+interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
+use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
+
+The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
+non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
+depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
+C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
+
+=item Use of %s is deprecated
+
+(D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
+because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
+bad side effects.
+
=item Use of uninitialized value
(W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
@@ -2219,7 +2627,20 @@ a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
L<perlref> for more on this.
-=item Variable "%s" is not exported
+=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
+
+(W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
+valid when C<untie> was called.
+
+=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
+
+(W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
+or C<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 C<defined> operator.
+
+=item 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
@@ -2227,18 +2648,67 @@ 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.
-=item Variable syntax.
+=item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
+
+(W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<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 C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
+support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
+subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
+
+=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
+
+(W) An inner (nested) I<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 I<never> share the given variable.
+
+This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
+anonymous, using the C<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.
+
+=item Variable syntax
(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
-of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
-into Perl yourself.
+of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
+Perl yourself.
-=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly.
+=item Warning: something's wrong
-(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
-close(0. This usually indicates your filesystem ran out of disk space.
+(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
+you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
-=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parens is ambiguous
+=item 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 file system ran out of disk space.
+
+=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
(S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
@@ -2255,7 +2725,7 @@ but in actual fact, you got
rand(+5);
-So put in parens to say what you really mean.
+So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
=item Write on closed filehandle
@@ -2288,7 +2758,7 @@ Use a filename instead.
=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
-(F) And you probably never will, since you probably don't have the
+(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 use the wrapsuid script in
the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
@@ -2309,18 +2779,18 @@ See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
=item \1 better written as $1
(W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
-of backslashes is grandfathered on the righthand side of a
+of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
if there are more than 9 backreferences.
-=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
+=item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
-'<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
+'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
-=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
+=item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
@@ -2335,5 +2805,38 @@ streams, such as
}
close OUT;
+=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
+
+(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
+version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
+
+=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
+
+(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
+
+ prefix1;prefix2
+
+or
+
+ prefix1 prefix2
+
+with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
+of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
+may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
+"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
+
+=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
+
+(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
+C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
+
+=item Process terminated by SIG%s
+
+(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
+applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
+port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
+L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
+in F<README.os2>.
+
=back