MAN page from Old RedHat 5.X perl-5.004-4.i386.rpm

PERLDIAG

Section: Perl Programmers Reference Guide (1)
Updated: perl 5.004, patch 04
Index 

NAME

perldiag - various Perl diagnostics 

DESCRIPTION

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

    (W) A warning (optional).    (D) A deprecation (optional).    (S) A severe warning (mandatory).    (F) A fatal error (trappable).    (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).    (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).    (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).

Optional warnings are enabled by using the -w switch. Warnings maybe captured by setting $SIG{__WARN__} to a reference to a routine thatwill be called on each warning instead of printing it. See the perlvar manpage.Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. Seethe eval entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!The symbols "%(-?@ sort before the letters, while [ and \ sort after.

my variable %s can't be in a package

(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make senseto try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()if you want to localize a package variable.

my variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope

(W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectivelyeliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost alwaysa typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still existuntil the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it aredestroyed.

no not allowed in expression

(F) The ``no'' keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returnsno useful value. See the perlmod manpage.

use not allowed in expression

(F) The ``use'' keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returnsno useful value. See the perlmod manpage.

% may only be used in unpack

(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because thechecksumming process loses information, and you can't go the otherway. See the unpack entry in the perlfunc manpage.

%s (...) interpreted as function

(W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followedby parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators argumentsfound inside the parentheses. See the section on Terms and List Operators (Leftward) in the perlop manpage.

%s argument is not a HASH element

(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as

    $foo{$bar}    $ref->[12]->{"susie"}

%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"}

%s did not return a true value

(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate thatit compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It'straditional to end such a file with a ``1;'', though any true value woulddo. See the require entry in the perlfunc manpage.

%s found where operator expected

(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If itsees 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 ordelimiter 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) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if theregular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See the perlre manpage.

%s never introduced

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

%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 insteadof Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script intoPerl yourself.

%s: Expression syntax

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

%s: Undefined variable

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

%s: not found

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

(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 onthe 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 stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn'tknow about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.

-p destination: %s

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

500 Server error

See Server error.

?+* follows nothing in regexp

(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash itif you meant it literally. See the perlre manpage.

@ outside of string

(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outsidethe string being unpacked. See the pack entry in the perlfunc manpage.

accept() on closed fd

(W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to checkthe return value of your socket() call? See the accept entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Allocation too large: %lx

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

Allocation too large

(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount'' bytes.

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 arrayor a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- thelength of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work onthat scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. Seethe grep entry in the perlfunc manpage and the map entry in the perlfunc manpage for alternatives.

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)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the wayyou thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplyinga missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.

Args must match #! line

(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invokedwith match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systemsimpose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;for example, turn -w -U into -wU.

Argument %s isn't numeric%s

(W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator thatexpected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the messagewill identify which operator was so unfortunate.

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

(D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. Thisis 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 2nd and 3rd argumentsmust either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won'tknow which context to supply to the right side.

Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx

(P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that willbe garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside anyof those arenas.

Attempt to free nonexistent shared string

(P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings tooptimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. Thisindicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a stringthat can no longer be found in the table.

Attempt to free temp prematurely

(W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV beforethe free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to freeit.

Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers

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

Attempt to free unreferenced scalar

(W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if itwould go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. Thiscould indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or thatSvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalizedwhen it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.

Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value

(W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of afunction, or a computed expression) to the ``p'' pack() template. Thismeans the result contains a pointer to a location that could becomeinvalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Useliterals or global values as arguments to the ``p'' pack() template toavoid this warning.

Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr

(W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() usedas an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot todereference it first. See the substr entry in the perlfunc manpage.

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

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

Bad filehandle: %s

(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbolhas no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), ordid it in another package.

Bad free() ignored

(S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never beenmalloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled bysetting environment variable PERL_BADFREE to 1.

This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with``hard'' dynamic linking, like AIX and OS/2. It is a bug ofBerkeley DB which is left unnoticed if DB uses forgivingsystem malloc().

Bad hash

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

Bad name after %s::

(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn'tfinish 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 symbol for array

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

Bad symbol for filehandle

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

Bad symbol for hash

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

Badly placed ()'s

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

Bareword %s not allowed while strict

(F) With ``strict subs'' in use, a bareword is only allowed as asubroutine identifier, in curly braces or to the left of the ``=>'' symbol.Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?

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, whichimplies a BEGIN {}) after one or more compilation errors hadalready occurred. Since the intended environment for the BEGIN {}could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent codelikely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.

bind() on closed fd

(W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to checkthe return value of your socket() call? See the bind entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Bizarre copy of %s in %s

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

Callback called exit

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

Can't goto outside a block

(F) A ``goto'' statement was executed to jump out of what might looklike a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usuallyoccurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, whichis a no-no. See the goto entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Can't goto into the middle of a foreach loop

(F) A ``goto'' statement was executed to jump into the middle of aforeach loop. You can't get there from here. See the goto entry in the perlfunc manpage.

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 acurrent block. Note that an ``if'' or ``else'' block doesn't count as a``loopish'' block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually doublethe curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlieswill be considered a block that loops once. See the last entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Can't next outside a block

(F) A ``next'' statement was executed to reiterate the current block, butthere isn't a current block. Note that an ``if'' or ``else'' block doesn'tcount as a ``loopish'' block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You canusually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the innercurlies will be considered a block that loops once. See the next entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Can't redo outside a block

(F) A ``redo'' statement was executed to restart the current block, butthere isn't a current block. Note that an ``if'' or ``else'' block doesn'tcount as a ``loopish'' block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You canusually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the innercurlies will be considered a block that loops once. See the redo entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Can't bless non-reference value

(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl ``enforces''encapsulation of objects. See the perlobj manpage.

Can't break at that line

(S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicatingthe line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that couldbe stopped at.

Can't call method %s in empty package %s

(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a packagefunctioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING definedin it, let alone methods. See the perlobj manpage.

Can't call method %s on unblessed reference

(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. Itordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, butyou didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn'tan object reference until it has been blessed. See the perlobj manpage.

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 theobject reference or package name contains an expression that returnsneither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)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 directorythat you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.

Can't coerce %s to integer in %s

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

Can't create pipe mailbox

(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotasor other plumbing problems.

Can't declare %s in my

(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.They must have ordinary identifiers as names.

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

(S) 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 readingfrom a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say -i.bak, or somesuch.

Can't do inplace edit: %s > 14 characters

(S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.

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

(S) 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 emulatorof 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 exec suidperl todo setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of theform sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable residesunder the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, askyour sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.

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 wantyour regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See the perlre manpage.

Can't emulate -%s on #! line

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

Can't exec %s:

(W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the namedprogram for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissionswere wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in $ENV{PATH}, theexecutable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the#! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run forsimilar 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'swhat the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need tomention ``perl'' on the #! line somewhere.

Can't execute %s

(F) You used the -S switch, but the copies of the script to execute foundin 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 foundin the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The scriptexists 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 foundin the PATH.

Can't find label %s

(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possiblefor us to go to. See the goto entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF

(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means thatthe closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nestinglevels, 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 while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.

Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?

(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference betweenaccess 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, sothat ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perlassumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passesit, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try toretrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warningappears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up andreturned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routineknows about the Perl stat operator and file tests, so you shouldn't eversee this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internalcode takes stat buffers lightly.)

Can't get pipe mailbox device name

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

Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF

(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want yourmailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.

Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine

(F) The deeply magical ``goto subroutine'' call can only replace one subroutinecall for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In generalyou should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. Seethe goto entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Can't localize through a reference

(F) You said something like local $$ref, which Perl can't currentlyhandle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $refpointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't besure 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 alexical variable using ``my''. This is not allowed. If you want tolocalize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with thepackage name.

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

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

Can't locate %s in @INC

(F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be foundin any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set thePERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra libraryis, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybeyou just misspelled the name of the file. See the require entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Can't locate object method %s via package %s

(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a packagefunctioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particularmethod, nor does any of its base classes. See the perlobj manpage.

Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA

(W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seemto 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 mktemp()

(F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to processa -e switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.

Can't modify %s in %s

(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try tochange it, such as with an auto-increment.

Can't modify nonexistent substring

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

Can't msgrcv to read-only var

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

Can't open %s: %s

(S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the <>filehandle, either implicitly under the -n or -p command-lineswitches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually thisis because you don't have read permission for a file which you namedon the command line.

Can't open bidirectional pipe

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

Can't open error file %s as stderr

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, andcouldn't open the file specified after `2>' or `2>>' on thecommand line for writing.

Can't open input file %s as stdin

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, andcouldn't open the file specified after `<' on the command line for reading.

Can't open output file %s as stdout

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, andcouldn't open the file specified after `>' or `>>' on the commandline for writing.

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

(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, andcouldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.

Can't open perl script %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 keepspointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when itwas currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to dothis, you should write sort { &func } @x instead of sort func @x.

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

(S) The rename done by the -i switch failed for some reason, probably becauseyou 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 toreopen 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 emulatorof suidperl.

Can't return outside a subroutine

(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, wherethere was no subroutine call to return out of. See the perlsub manpage.

Can't stat script %s

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

Can't swap uid and euid

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

Can't take log of %g

(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of anegative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comesstandard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that forthe negative numbers.

Can't take sqrt of %g

(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of anegative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standardwith 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 theredefined 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, suchas the main Perl stack.

Can't upgrade that kind of scalar

(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds ``members'' to an SV, makingit into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types areso specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. Thismessage 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 schemeof upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in thecode calling sv_upgrade.

Can't use my

(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 thelexical variable.

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 areference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function totest the type of the reference, if need be.

Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression

(W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that createsa reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreferenceto 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 printsout looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.

Can't use bareword '%s' as %s ref while \strict refs\

(F) Only hard references are allowed by ``strict refs''. Symbolic referencesare disallowed. See the perlref manpage.

Can't use string '%s' as %s ref while strict

(F) Only hard references are allowed by ``strict refs''. Symbolic referencesare disallowed. See the perlref manpage.

Can't use an undefined value as %s reference

(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference mustbe 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 isnot allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namelythe global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to havevariables in your program that looked like magical variables butweren't.

Can't use subscript on %s

(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as asubscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression thatdidn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.

Can't write to temp file for -e: %s

(F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to processa -e switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.

Can't x= to read-only value

(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) withan assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.

Cannot open temporary file

(F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to processa -e switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.

Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'

(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (asopposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via thepackage. If method name is ???, this is an internal error.

chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0

(W) A novice will sometimes say

    chmod 777, $filename

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

Close on unopened file <%s>

(W) 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 encounteredwere severe enough to halt compilation immediately.

connect() on closed fd

(W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to checkthe return value of your socket() call? See the connect entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Constant subroutine %s redefined

(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible forinlining. See the section on Constant Functions in the perlsub manpage for commentary andworkarounds.

Constant subroutine %s undefined

(S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible forinlining. See the section on Constant Functions in the perlsub manpage for commentary andworkarounds.

Copy method did not return a reference

(F) The method which overloads ``='' is buggy. See the section on Copy Constructor in the overload manpage.

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 regularexpression compiler gave it.

corrupted regexp program

(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program withouta valid magic number.

Deep recursion on subroutine %s

(W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infiniterecursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in whichcase it indicates something else.

Delimiter for here document is too long

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

Did you mean &%s instead?

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

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 "") oryou 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 ``%sfound where operator expected''. It often means a subroutine or modulename is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may bebecause of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing``sub'', ``package'', ``require'', or ``use'' statement. If you'rereferencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually haveto define the subroutine or package before the current location. Youcan use an empty ``sub foo;'' or ``package FOO;'' to enter a ``forward''declaration.

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) An internal routine called free() on something that had alreadybeen freed.

elseif should be elsif

(S) There is no keyword ``elseif'' in Perl because Larry thinks it'sugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a methodnamed ``elseif'' for the class returned by the following block. This isunlikely to be what you want.

END failed---cleanup aborted

(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.The interpreter is immediately exited.

Error converting file specification %s

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with filespecifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to asingle form when it must operate on them directly. Either you'vepassed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found acase the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.

Excessively long <> operator

(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of aPerl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list offilenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into avariable and glob that.

Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors

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

Exiting eval via %s

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

Exiting pseudo-block via %s

(W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block orsubroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop controlstatement. See the sort entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Exiting subroutine via %s

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

Exiting substitution via %s

(W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such asa return, a goto, or a loop control statement.

Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d

(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS systemservice or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. Thefilename in ``at %s'' and the line number in ``line %d'' tell you which section ofthe Perl source code is distressed.

fcntl is not implemented

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

Filehandle %s never opened

(W) 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 fromthe FileHandle package.

Filehandle %s opened for only input

(W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If youintended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with``+<'' or ``+>'' or ``+>>'' instead of with ``<'' or nothing. Ifyou intended only to write the file, use ``>'' or ``>>''. Seethe open entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Filehandle opened for only input

(W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If youintended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with``+<'' or ``+>'' or ``+>>'' instead of with ``<'' or nothing. Ifyou intended only to write the file, use ``>'' or ``>>''. Seethe open entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Final $ should be \$ or $name

(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to bea literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable namethat happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash orthe name.

Final @ should be \@ or @name

(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to bea literal ``at'' sign, or was meant to introduce a variable namethat happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash orthe name.

Format %s redefined

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

    {        local $^W = 0;        eval "format NAME =...";    }

Format not terminated

(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl gotto the end of your file without finding such a line.

Found = in conditional, should be ==

(W) 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(), probablybecause if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostnameon the Internet.

get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd

(W) 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 thegetpwnam operator returned an invalid UIC.

Glob not terminated

(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expectinga term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and notfinding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier inthe line, and you really meant a ``less than''.

Global symbol %s requires explicit package name

(F) You've said ``use strict vars'', which indicates that all variablesmust either be lexically scoped (using ``my"), or explicitly qualified tosay which package the global variable is in (using ``::").

goto must have label

(F) Unlike with ``next'' or ``last'', you're not allowed to goto anunspecified destination. See the goto entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Had to create %s unexpectedly

(S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to haveexisted already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created onan emergency basis to prevent a core dump.

Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()

(D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. Thisis now heavily deprecated.

Identifier too long

(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) toabout 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compoundnames (like $A::B). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Futureversions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.

Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter

(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparingto iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logicalnames. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will notappear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packagesmight directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.

Illegal character %s (carriage return)

(F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is anerror, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can breakmulti-line strings, including here documents (e.g., print <<EOF;).

Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that wastransferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system withoutproperly converting the text file format.

Under systems that use something other than `\n' to delimit lines oftext, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a filehandle that is in binary mode (as set by the binmode operator).

In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to beconverted with something like s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g before it can beexecuted.

Illegal division by zero

(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in yourlogic, 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 numbersdon't take to this kindly.

Illegal octal digit

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

Illegal octal digit ignored

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

Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s

(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set thefollowing 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 anarray interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was firstused at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguousinstances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash toindicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within theprogram before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assumethat 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 mechanismlabels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data isused in a ``dangerous'' operation, you get this error. See the perlsec manpagefor more information.

Insecure directory in %s

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

Insecure PATH

(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid orsetgid script if $ENV{PATH} is derived from data supplied (orpotentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to aknown value, using trustworthy data. See the perlsec manpage.

Integer overflow in hex number

(S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for yourarchitecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is0xFFFFFFFF.

Integer overflow in octal number

(S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for yourarchitecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is037777777777.

Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks

(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the numberof times you've called fork and exec, to determinewhether the current call to exec should affect the currentscript or a subprocess (see the exec entry in the perlvms manpage). Somehow, this counthas become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treatingthis exec as a request to terminate the Perl scriptand execute the specified command.

internal disaster in regexp

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

internal error: glob failed

(P) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for globand <*.c>. This may mean that your csh (C shell) isbroken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables inconfig.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if itwere csh (e.g. full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'); otherwise, make them allempty (except that d_csh should be 'undef') so that Perl willthink csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run./Configure -S and rebuild Perl.

internal urp in regexp at /%s/

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

invalid [] range in regexp

(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum charactergreater than the maximum character. See the perlre manpage.

Invalid conversion in %s: %s

(W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.See the sprintf entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Invalid type in pack: `%s'

(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See the pack entry in the perlfunc manpage.(W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silentlyignored.

Invalid type in unpack: `%s'

(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See the unpack entry in the perlfunc manpage.(W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silentlyignored.

ioctl is not implemented

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

junk on end of regexp

(P) The regular expression parser is confused.

Label not found for last

(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in aloop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.See the last entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Label not found for next

(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop ofthat name, not even if you count where you were called from. Seethe last entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Label not found for redo

(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop ofthat name, not even if you count where you were called from. Seethe last entry in the perlfunc manpage.

listen() on closed fd

(W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to checkthe return value of your socket() call? See the listen entry in the perlfunc manpage.

Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing

(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table thatdoesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See the overload manpage.

Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d

(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been causedby a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventuallyended earlier on the current line.

Misplaced _ in number

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

Missing $ on loop variable

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

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 operator before %s?

(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message ``%sfound where operator expected''. Often the missing operator is a comma.

Missing right bracket

(F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were lastediting.

Modification of a read-only value attempted

(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of aconstant. You didn't, of course, try ``2 = 1'', because the compilercatches 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 noncreatable array value attempted, subscript %d

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

Modification of noncreatable hash value attempted, subscript %s

(F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn'tbe 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) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like $foo[1,2,3]. They're writtenlike $foo[1][2][3], as in C.

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 mentionit again somehow to suppress the message. The use vars pragma isprovided for just this purpose.

Negative length

(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer lengththat is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.

nested *?+ in regexp

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

Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, *?, +?, and ?? appearto be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See the perlre manpage.

No #! line

(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! lineeven 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 setgidscript to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will beanother way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.See the perlsec manpage.

No -e allowed in setuid scripts

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

No comma allowed after %s

(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or ``indirect object'' is notallowed 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 aconstant to your name space with use or import while no suchimporting took place, it may for example be that your operating systemdoes not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use anexplicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please seethe use entry in the perlfunc manpage and the import entry in the perlfunc manpage. While an explicit import listwould probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does notremedy the fact that your operating system still does not support thatconstant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol importlist of use or import or in the constant name at the line wherethis error was triggered?

No command into which to pipe on command line

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,and found a `|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where youwant 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 eachstatement. Which is odd, because the file should have been requiredautomatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parseright.

No dbm on this machine

(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine shouldsupply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See the SDBM_File manpage.

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 eachordinary subroutine call.

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

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,and found a `2>' or a `2>>' on the command line, but can't findthe name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.

No input file after < on command line

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,and found a `<' on the command line, but can't find the name of the filefrom which to read data for stdin.

No output file after > on command line

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,and found a lone `>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't knowwhere you wanted to redirect stdout.

No output file after > or >> on command line

(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,and found a `>' or a `>>' on the command line, but can't find thename of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.

No Perl script found in input

(F) You called perl -x, but no line was found in the file beginningwith #! and containing the word ``perl''.

No setregid available

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

No setreuid available

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

No space allowed after -I

(F) The argument to -I must follow the -I immediately with nointervening space.

No such pipe open

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

No such signal: SIG%s

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

Not a CODE reference

(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, asubroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You canuse the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.See also the perlref manpage.

Not a format reference

(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymousformat, but this indicates 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 tosomething else instead. You can use the