PERLDIAG(1)
NNAAMMEE
perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
These messages are classified as follows (listed in
increasing order of desperation):
(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 --ww switch.
Warnings may be captured by setting $SIG{__WARN__} to a
reference to a routine that will be called on each warning
instead of printing it. See the perlvar manpage.
Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator.
See the 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 sense to 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, 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.
""""no"""" not allowed in expression
(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at
compile time, and returns no useful value. See the
perlmod manpage.
""""use"""" not allowed in expression
(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at
compile time, and returns no useful value. See the
perlmod manpage.
% may only be used in unpack
(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum,
because the checksumming process loses information,
and you can't go the other way. See 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 followed by parentheses turns into a
function, with all the list operators arguments found
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 that it compiled correctly and ran its
initialization code correctly. It's traditional to
end such a file with a "1;", though any true value
would do. See 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 it sees what it knows to be a term
when it was expecting to see an operator, it gives you
this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator
or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
%s had compilation errors
(F) The final summary message when a perl -c fails.
%s has too many errors
(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the
program after 10 errors. Further error messages would
likely be uninformative.
%s matches null string many times
(W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite
loop if the regular 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 scope before 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 ccsshh
instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed
your script into Perl yourself.
%s: Expression syntax
(A) You've accidentally run your script through ccsshh
instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed
your script into Perl yourself.
%s: Undefined variable
(A) You've accidentally run your script through ccsshh
instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed
your script into Perl yourself.
%s: not found
(A) You've accidentally run your script through the
Bourne shell instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or
manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
(Missing semicolon on previous line?)
(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with
the message "%s found where operator expected". Don't
automatically put a semicolon on the previous line
just because you saw this message.
--PP 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't know 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 -p command-line switch. (This output
goes to STDOUT unless you've redirected it with
select().)
500 Server error
See Server error.
?+* follows nothing in regexp
(F) You started a regular expression with a
quantifier. Backslash it if you meant it literally.
See the perlre manpage.
@ outside of string
(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute
position outside the 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 check the 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 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 the 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 way you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to
disambiguate it by supplying a missing quote,
operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
Args must match #! line
(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments
Perl was invoked with match the arguments specified on
the #! line. Since some systems impose a one-argument
limit on the #! line, try combining switches; for
example, turn -w -U into -wU.
Argument """"%s"""" isn't numeric%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 will 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. This is now heavily deprecated.
assertion botched: %s
(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an
internal failure.
Assertion failed: file """"%s""""
(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question
must be examined.
Assignment to both a list and a scalar
(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd
and 3rd arguments must either both be scalars or both
be lists. Otherwise Perl won't know which context to
supply to the right side.
Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
(P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from
arenas that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV
was discovered to be outside any of those arenas.
Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
(P) 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.
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 before the free_tmps() routine
gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it
does try to free it.
Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
(P) 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 it would go to 0, and discovered that
it had already gone to 0 earlier, and should have been
freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This could
indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many
times, or that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few
times, or that the SV was mortalized when it shouldn't
have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
(W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the
result of a function, or a computed expression) to the
"p" pack() template. This means the result contains a
pointer to a location that could become invalid
anytime, even before the end of the current statement.
Use literals or global values as arguments to the "p"
pack() template to avoid this warning.
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 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() or shmctl(). In C parlance, the
correct sizes are, respectively,
sizeof(struct msqid_ds *), sizeof(struct semid_ds *),
and sizeof(struct shmid_ds *).
Bad filehandle: %s
(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a
filehandle, but the symbol has no filehandle
associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(),
or did it in another package.
Bad free() ignored
(S) An internal routine called free() on something
that had never been malloc()ed in the first place.
Mandatory, but can be disabled by setting environment
variable 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 of Berkeley DB which is left
unnoticed if DB uses forgiving system 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't finish the symbol. In
particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
so
$var = 'myvar';
$sym = mypack::$var;
is not the same as
$var = 'myvar';
$sym = "mypack::$var";
Bad symbol for array
(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to
something that wasn't a symbol table entry.
Bad symbol for filehandle
(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle
entry to something that wasn't a symbol table entry.
Bad symbol for hash
(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to
something that wasn't a symbol table entry.
Badly placed ()'s
(A) You've accidentally run your script through ccsshh
instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed
your script into Perl yourself.
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?
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing
a BEGIN subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and
the interpreter is exited.
BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
(F) Perl found a BEGIN {} subroutine (or a use
directive, which implies a BEGIN {}) after one or more
compilation errors had already occurred. Since the
intended environment for the BEGIN {} could not be
guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent
code likely depends on its correct operation, Perl
just gave up.
bind() on closed fd
(W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did
you forget to check the 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 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 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 a foreach 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 a current block. Note that
an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). 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 the last entry in the
perlfunc manpage.
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, 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 the next
entry in the perlfunc manpage.
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, 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 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, indicating the line
number specified wasn't the location of a statement
that could be stopped at.
Can't call method """"%s"""" in empty package """"%s""""
(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly
indicated a package functioning as a class, but that
package doesn't have ANYTHING defined in it, let alone
methods. 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. 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
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 the object reference or package name
contains an expression that returns neither 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
directory that 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't say things like:
*foo += 1;
You CAN say
$foo = *foo;
$foo += 1;
but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
Can't coerce %s to number in %s
(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular 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 quotas or 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 reading from a deleted (but still
opened) file. You have to say -i.bak, or some such.
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 --ii switch on a special file,
such as a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was
ignored.
Can't do setegid!
(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the
setuid emulator of suidperl.
Can't do seteuid!
(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some
reason.
Can't do setuid
(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to
exec suidperl to do setuid emulation, but couldn't
exec it. It looks for a name of the form sperl5.000
in the same directory that the perl executable resides
under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on
Unix machines. If the file is there, check the
execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your sysadmin
why he and/or she removed it.
Can't do waitpid with flags
(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or
wait4(), so only waitpid() without flags is emulated.
Can't do {n,m} with n > m
(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If
you really want your regexp to match something 0
times, just 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 --xx on the #! line.
Can't exec """"%s": %s
(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 $ENV{PATH}, the
executable in question was compiled for another
architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an
interpreter that can't be run for similar reasons.
(Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
Can't exec %s
(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program
for you because that's what the #! line said. If
that's not what you wanted, you may need to mention
"perl" on the #! line somewhere.
Can't execute %s
(F) You used the --SS switch, but the copies of the
script to execute found in the PATH did not have
correct permissions.
Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
(F) You used the --SS switch, but the script to execute
could not be found in the PATH, or at least not with
the correct permissions. The script exists in the
current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
Can't find %s on PATH
(F) You used the --SS switch, but the script to execute
could not be found in the PATH.
Can't find label %s
(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned
anywhere that it's possible for us to go to. 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 that the closing delimiter was
omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
levels, the following is missing its final
parenthesis:
print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
If you're getting this error from a here-document, you
may have included unseen whitespace before or after
your closing tag. A good programmer's editor will have
a way to help you find these characters.
Can't fork
(F) A fatal error occurred 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 between access checks under VMS and
under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS, access
checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections
can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
assumes that the stat buffer contains all the
necessary information, and passes it, instead of the
filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try
to retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID
present in the stat buffer, but this works only if you
haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
routine, because the device name is overwritten with
each call. If this warning appears, the name lookup
failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The
access checking routine knows about the Perl stat
operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever see
this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
only if some internal code takes stat buffers
lightly.)
Can't get pipe mailbox device name
(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a
mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name
for later use.
Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how
big you want your mailbox 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 subroutine call for another. It can't
manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general you
should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine
anyway. See the goto entry in the perlfunc manpage.
Can't localize through a reference
(F) You said something like local $$ref, which Perl
can't currently handle, because when it goes to
restore the old value of whatever $ref pointed to
after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't
be sure that $ref will still be a reference.
Can't localize lexical variable %s
(F) You used local on a variable name that was
previously declared as a lexical variable using "my".
This is not allowed. If you want to localize a
package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
package name.
Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
(F) A function (or method) was called in a package
which allows autoload, but there is no function to
autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint in a
function/method name or a failure to AutoSplit the
file, say, by doing make install.
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 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 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 package functioning as a class, but that
package doesn't define that particular method, 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 seem to exist.
Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some
systems, notably VMS.
Can't mktemp()
(F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while
trying to process a --ee 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 to change it, such as with
an auto-increment.
Can't modify nonexistent substring
(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a
substr() was handed a NULL.
Can't msgrcv to read-only var
(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be
used as a receive buffer.
Can't open %s: %s
(S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the
<> filehandle, either implicitly under the -n or -p
command-line switches, or explicitly, failed for the
indicated reason. Usually this is because you don't
have read permission for a file which you named on the
command line.
Can't open bidirectional pipe
(W) You tried to say open(CMD, "|cmd|"), which is not
supported. You can try any of several modules in the
Perl library to do this, such as IPC::Open2.
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, and couldn't open the file
specified after '2>' or '2>>' on the command line for
writing.
Can't open input file %s as stdin
(F) 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.
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.
Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own
command line redirection, and couldn't open the pipe
into which to send data destined for stdout.
Can't open perl script """"%s": %s
(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the
indicated reason.
Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort
subroutines and keeps pointers into them. You tried
to redefine one such sort subroutine when it was
currently active, which is not allowed. If you really
want to do this, you should write sort { &func } @x
instead of sort func @x.
Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
(S) The rename done by the --ii switch failed for some
reason, probably because you don't have write
permission to the directory.
Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was
a pipe, and tried to reopen it to accept binary data.
Alas, it failed.
Can't reswap uid and euid
(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the
setuid emulator of suidperl.
Can't return outside a subroutine
(F) The return statement was executed in mainline
code, that is, where there was no subroutine call to
return out of. See the perlsub manpage.
Can't stat script """"%s""""
(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even
though you have it open already. Bizarre.
Can't swap uid and euid
(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the
setuid emulator of suidperl.
Can't take log of %g
(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the
logarithm of a negative number or zero. There's a
Math::Complex package that comes standard with Perl,
though, if you really want to do that for the negative
numbers.
Can't take sqrt of %g
(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the
square root of a negative number. There's a
Math::Complex package that comes standard with Perl,
though, if you really want to do that.
Can't undef active subroutine
(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently
running. You can, however, redefine it while it's
running, and you can even undef the redefined
subroutine while the old routine is running. Go
figure.
Can't unshift
(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't
be unshifted, such as the main Perl stack.
Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to
an SV, making it into a more specialized kind of SV.
The top several SV types are so specialized, however,
that they cannot be interconverted. This message
indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
Can't upgrade to undef
(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole,
in the scheme of upgradability. Upgrading to undef
indicates an error in the code calling sv_upgrade.
Can't use """"my %s"""" in sort comparison
(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for
sort comparisons. You mentioned $a or $b in the same
line as the <=> or cmp operator, and the variable had
earlier been declared as a lexical variable. Either
qualify the sort variable with the package name, or
rename the lexical variable.
Can't use %s for loop variable
(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a
loop variable on a foreach.
Can't use %s ref as %s ref
(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to
dereference a reference of the type needed. You can
use the ref() function to test the type of the
reference, if need be.
Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
(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 valid only as part of a regular
expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary
Perl code produces a value that prints out looking
like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
Can't use bareword '%s' as %s ref while \"strict refs\""""
in use
(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs".
Symbolic references are disallowed. See the perlref
manpage.
Can't use string '%s' as %s ref while """"strict refs""""
in use
(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs".
Symbolic references are disallowed. See 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 must be a defined value. This
helps to delurk some insidious errors.
Can't use global %s in """"my""""
(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a
lexical variable. This is not allowed, because the
magic can be tied to only one location (namely the
global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing
to have variables in your program that looked like
magical variables but weren't.
Can't use subscript on %s
(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed
expression as a subscript. But to the left of the
brackets was an expression that didn't look like an
array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
Can't write to temp file for --ee: %s
(F) The write routine failed for some reason while
trying to process a --ee 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) with an 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 process a --ee 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 (as opposed to a subroutine reference): no
such method callable via the package. 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, equivalent to 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 encountered were
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 check the 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 for inlining. See the section on
Constant Functions in the perlsub manpage for
commentary and workarounds.
Constant subroutine %s undefined
(S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously
been eligible for inlining. See the section on
Constant Functions in the perlsub manpage for
commentary and workarounds.
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 regular expression compiler gave it.
corrupted regexp program
(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp
program without a valid magic number.
Deep recursion on subroutine """"%s""""
(W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or
indirectly) 100 times more than it has returned. This
probably indicates an infinite recursion, unless
you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
case it indicates something else.
Delimiter for here document is too long
(F) In a here document construct like <die() an empty string (the equivalent
of die "") or you called it with no args and both $@
and $_ were empty.
Do you need to predeclare %s?
(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with
the message "%s found where operator expected". It
often means a subroutine or module name is being
referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
because of ordering problems in your file, or because
of a missing "sub", "package", "require", or "use"
statement. If you're referencing something that isn't
defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
subroutine or package before the current location.
You can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to
enter a "forward" declaration.
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 already been freed.
elseif should be elsif
(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry
thinks it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an
attempt to call a method named "elseif" for the class
returned by the following block. This is unlikely to
be what you want.
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 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.
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.
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 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
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 the sort entry in the perlfunc manpage.
Exiting subroutine via %s
(W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional
means, such as a goto, or a loop control statement.
Exiting substitution via %s
(W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional
means, such as a 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 system service or RTL routine;
Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d"
tell you which section of the Perl source code is
distressed.
fcntl is not implemented
(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl().
What is this, a PDP-11 or something?
Filehandle %s never opened
(W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle
that was never initialized. You need to do an open()
or a socket() call, or call a constructor from the
FileHandle package.
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 intended only to write
the file, use ">" or ">>". See the open entry in the
perlfunc manpage.
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 intended only to write
the file, use ">" or ">>". See the 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 be a literal dollar sign, or was
meant to introduce a variable name that happens to be
missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
the name.
Final @ should be \@ or @name
(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a
string was meant to be a literal "at" sign, or was
meant to introduce a variable name that happens to be
missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
the name.
Format %s redefined
(W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning,
say
{
local $^W = 0;
eval "format NAME =...";
}
Format not terminated
(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a
solitary dot. Perl got to the end of your file
without finding such a line.
Found = in conditional, should be ==
(W) You said
if ($foo = 123)
when you meant
if ($foo == 123)
(or something like that).
gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key """"%s""""
(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a
store failed.
gethostent not implemented
(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement
gethostent(), probably because if it did, it'd feel
morally obligated to return every hostname on the
Internet.
get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
(W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a
closed socket. Did you forget to check the return
value of your socket() call?
getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user """"%s""""
(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to sys$getuai
underlying the getpwnam operator returned an invalid
UIC.
Glob not terminated
(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place
where it was expecting a term, so it's looking for the
corresponding right angle bracket, and not finding it.
Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less
than".
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 say which
package the global variable is in (using "::").
goto must have label
(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed
to goto an unspecified 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 have existed already, but for some
reason it didn't, and had to be created on an
emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
(D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names
in some spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
Identifier too long
(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables,
functions, etc.) to about 250 characters for simple
names, and somewhat more for compound names (like
$A::B). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these
arbitrary limitations.
Ill-formed 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.
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., print
<--[[DDIIMMUUddmmww]].
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.)
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 --TT to turn it on explicitly. The
tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived
directly or indirectly from the user, who is
considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such
data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this
error. See the perlsec manpage for more information.
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. See the
perlsec manpage.
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 potentially supplied) by the
user. The script must set the path to a known 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 your architecture. On a 32-bit architecture
the largest hex literal is 0xFFFFFFFF.
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.
Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of
the number of times you've called fork and exec, to
determine whether the current call to exec should
affect the current script or a subprocess (see the
exec entry in the perlvms manpage). Somehow, this
count has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess
and treating this exec as a request to terminate the
Perl script and execute the specified command.
internal disaster in regexp
(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular
expression parser.
internal error: glob failed
(P) Something went wrong with the external program(s)
used for glob and <*.c>. 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. full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'); otherwise, make them
all empty (except that d_csh should be 'undef') so
that Perl will think csh is missing. In either case,
after editing config.sh, run ./Configure -S and
rebuild Perl.
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 character greater 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
silently ignored.
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 silently ignored.
ioctl is not implemented
(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(),
which is pretty strange for a machine that supports C.
junk on end of regexp
(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
Label not found for """"last %s""""
(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not
currently in a loop of that name, not even if you
count where you were called from. See the last entry
in the perlfunc manpage.
Label not found for """"next %s""""
(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not
currently in a loop of that name, not even if you
count where you were called from. See the last entry
in the perlfunc manpage.
Label not found for """"redo %s""""
(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not
currently in a loop of that name, not even if you
count where you were called from. See the 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 check the 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 that doesn'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 caused by a missing delimiter on a string or
pattern, because it eventually ended 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 ccsshh too
much. Variables are always mentioned with the $ in
Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from one
line to the next.
Missing 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 "%s found 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 last
editing.
Modification of a read-only value attempted
(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the
value of a constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 =
1", because the compiler catches that. But an easy
way to do the same thing is:
sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
mod(2);
Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the
end of the string.
Modification of 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.
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.
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 written like $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 mention it again somehow to
suppress the message. The use vars pragma is provided
for just this purpose.
Negative length
(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation
with a buffer length that is less than 0. This is
difficult to imagine.
nested *?+ in regexp
(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without
intervening parentheses. So things like ** or +* or
?* are illegal.
Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers,
*?, +?, and ?? appear to be nested quantifiers, but
aren't. See the perlre manpage.
No #! line
(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a
well-formed #! line even on machines that don't
support the #! construct.
No %s allowed while running setuid
(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure
for a setuid or setgid script to even be allowed to
attempt. Generally speaking there will be another way
to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
securable. See the perlsec manpage.
No --ee 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 not allowed to have a comma between that
and the following arguments. Otherwise it'd be just
another one of the arguments.
One possible cause for this is that you expected to
have imported a constant to your name space with uussee
or iimmppoorrtt 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 the use entry in the
perlfunc manpage and the import entry in the perlfunc
manpage. 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 uussee or
iimmppoorrtt or in the constant name at the line where this
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 you want
to pipe the output from this command.
No DB::DB routine defined
(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the
--dd switch, but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or
some facsimile thereof) didn't define a routine to be
called at the beginning of each statement. Which is
odd, because the file should have been required
automatically, and should have blown up the require if
it didn't parse right.
No dbm on this machine
(P) This is counted as an internal error, because
every machine should supply dbm nowadays, because Perl
comes with SDBM. See the SDBM_File manpage.
No DBsub routine
(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the
--dd switch, but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or
some facsimile thereof) didn't define a DB::sub
routine to be called at the beginning of each ordinary
subroutine call.
No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
(F) 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.
No input file after < on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own
command line redirection, and found a '<' on the
command line, but can't find the name of the file from
which to read data for stdin.
No output file after > on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own
command line redirection, and found a lone '>' at the
end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
wanted to redirect stdout.
No output file after > or >> on command line
(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own
command line redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on
the command line, but can't find the name of the file
to which to write data destined for stdout.
No Perl script found in input
(F) You called perl -x, but no line was found in the
file beginning with #! and containing the word "perl".
No setregid available
(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the
setregid() call for your system.
No setreuid available
(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the
setreuid() call for your system.
No space allowed after --II
(F) The argument to --II must follow the --II immediately
with no intervening space.
No such pipe open
(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine
my_pclose() tried to close a pipe which hadn't been
opened. This should have been caught earlier as an
attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
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, a subroutine), but found a reference
to something else instead. You can use the ref()
function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
See also the perlref manpage.
Not a format reference
(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a
reference to an anonymous format, but this indicates
you did, and that it didn't exist.
Not a GLOB reference
(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a
"typeglob" (that is, a symbol table entry that looks
like *foo), but found a reference to something else
instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
what kind of ref it really was. See the perlref
manpage.
Not a HASH reference
(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash
value, but found a reference to something else
instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
what kind of ref it really was. See the perlref
manpage.
Not a perl script
(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a
well-formed #! line even on machines that don't
support the #! construct. The line must mention perl.
Not a SCALAR reference
(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a
scalar value, but found a reference to something else
instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
what kind of ref it really was. See the perlref
manpage.
Not a subroutine reference
(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code
value (that is, a subroutine), but found a reference
to something else instead. You can use the ref()
function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
See also the perlref manpage.
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 the overload manpage.
Not an ARRAY reference
(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an
array value, but found a reference to something else
instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
what kind of ref it really was. See the perlref
manpage.
Not enough arguments for %s
(F) The function requires more arguments than you
specified.
Not enough format arguments
(W) A format specified more picture fields than the
next line supplied. See the perlform manpage.
Null filename used
(F) You can't require the null filename, especially
because on many machines that means the current
directory! See the require entry in the perlfunc
manpage.
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 the perlform manpage.
NULL OP IN RUN
(P) Some internal routine called run() with a null
opcode pointer.
Null realloc
(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
NULL regexp argument
(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big
time.
NULL regexp parameter
(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of
their gourd.
Number too long
(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers
in programs to about about 250 characters. You've
exceeded that length. Future versions of Perl are
likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the
meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6"
instead of "1_000_000").
Odd number of elements in hash list
(S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash
list, which is odd, because hash lists come in
key/value pairs.
Offset outside string
(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation
with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is
difficult to imagine. The sole exception to this is
that sysread()ing past the buffer will extend the
buffer and zero pad the new area.
oops: oopsAV
(S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed
up.
oops: oopsHV
(S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed
up.
Operation `%s': no method found,%s
(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded
operation for which no handler was defined. While
some handlers can be autogenerated in terms of other
handlers, there is no default handler for any
operation, unless fallback overloading key is
specified to be true. See the overload manpage.
Operator or semicolon missing before %s
(S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the
parser was expecting an operator. The parser has
assumed you really meant to use an operator, but this
is highly likely to be incorrect. For example, if you
say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
"*foo * 'foo'".
Out of memory for yacc stack
(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it
could continue parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it
more memory, virtual or otherwise.
Out of memory!
(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 $^M as an emergency
pool after die()ing with this message. In this case
the error is trappable once.
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.
page overflow
(W) A single call to write() produced more lines than
can fit on a page. See the perlform manpage.
panic: ck_grep
(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to
compile a grep.
panic: ck_split
(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to
compile a split.
panic: corrupt saved stack index
(P) The savestack was requested to restore more
localized values than there are in the savestack.
panic: die %s
(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context,
and then discovered it wasn't an eval context.
panic: do_match
(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with
invalid operational data.
panic: do_split
(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for
the split.
panic: do_subst
(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with
invalid operational data.
panic: do_trans
(P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with
invalid operational data.
panic: frexp
(P) The library function frexp() failed, making
printf("%f") impossible.
panic: goto
(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the
specified label, and then discovered it wasn't a
context we know how to do a goto in.
panic: INTERPCASEMOD
(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
panic: INTERPCONCAT
(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string
with brackets.
panic: last
(P) We popped the context stack to a block context,
and then discovered it wasn't a block context.
panic: leave_scope clearsv
(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only
somehow within the scope.
panic: leave_scope inconsistency
(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least,
there was an invalid enum on the top of it.
panic: malloc
(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of
malloc.
panic: mapstart
(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the
map() function.
panic: null array
(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a
null AV pointer.
panic: pad_alloc
(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad
it was allocating and freeing temporaries and lexicals
from.
panic: pad_free curpad
(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad
it was allocating and freeing temporaries and lexicals
from.
panic: pad_free po
(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected
internally.
panic: pad_reset curpad
(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad
it was allocating and freeing temporaries and lexicals
from.
panic: pad_sv po
(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected
internally.
panic: pad_swipe curpad
(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad
it was allocating and freeing temporaries and lexicals
from.
panic: pad_swipe po
(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected
internally.
panic: pp_iter
(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop
context frame.
panic: realloc
(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of
realloc.
panic: restartop
(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or
something like it), and didn't supply the destination.
panic: return
(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or
eval context, and then discovered it wasn't a
subroutine or eval context.
panic: scan_num
(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a
number.
panic: sv_insert
(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more
string than there was string.
panic: top_env
(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something
weird like that.
panic: yylex
(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a
case modifier.
Pareneses missing around """"%s"""" list
(W) You said something like
my $foo, $bar = @_;
when you meant
my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
(F) The module in question uses features of a version
of Perl more recent than the currently running
version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
anyway? See the require entry in the perlfunc
manpage.
Permission denied
(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were
up to no good.
pid %d not a child
(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to
wait for a process which isn't a subprocess of the
current process. While this is fine from VMS'
perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
(F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes
no argument, unlike the BSD version, which takes a
pid.
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
);
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 !;
Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was
bargaining for. Perl guesses a reasonable buffer
size, but puts a sentinel byte at the end of the
buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got
clobbered, and Perl assumes that memory is now
corrupted. See the ioctl entry in the perlfunc
manpage.
Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
(S) The old irregular construct
open FOO || die;
is now misinterpreted as
open(FOO || die);
because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's
grammar into unary and list operators. (The old open
was a little of both.) You must put parentheses
around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
instead of "||".
print on closed filehandle %s
(W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself
closed sometime before now. Check your logic flow.
printf on closed filehandle %s
(W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed
sometime before now. Check your logic flow.
Probable precedence problem on %s
(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;
Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
(S) The subroutine being declared or defined had
previously been declared or defined with a different
function prototype.
Read on closed filehandle <%s>
(W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself
closed sometime before now. Check your logic flow.
Reallocation too large: %lx
(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS
machine.
Recompile perl with --DDDEBUGGING to use --DD switch
(F) You can't use the --DD option unless the code to
produce the desired output is compiled into Perl,
which entails some overhead, which is why it's
currently left out of your copy.
Recursive inheritance detected
(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used.
Probably indicates an unintended loop in your
inheritance hierarchy.
Reference miscount in sv_replace()
(W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a
new SV with a reference count of other than 1.
regexp *+ operand could be empty
(F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or
+ quantifier could match an empty string.
regexp memory corruption
(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what
the regular expression compiler gave it.
regexp out of space
(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc()
should have caught it earlier.
regexp too big
(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 way to do it with multiple
statements. See the perlre manpage.
Reversed %s= operator
(W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The
= must always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with
subsequent unary operators.
Runaway format
(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank
sequence, but it produced 200 lines at once, and the
200th line looked exactly like the 199th line.
Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to
exhaust themselves, either by using ^ instead of @
(for scalar variables), or by shifting or popping (for
array variables). See the perlform manpage.
Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
(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 like
a list when you assign to it, and provides a list
context to its subscript, which can do weird things if
you're expecting only one subscript.
On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to
treat the array element as a list, you need to look
into how references work, because Perl will not
magically convert between scalars and lists for you.
See the perlref manpage.
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 $foo{&bar} always behaves like
a scalar, both when assigning to it and when
evaluating its argument, while @foo{&bar} behaves like
a list when you assign to it, and provides a list
context to its subscript, which can do weird things if
you're expecting only one subscript.
On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to
treat the hash element as a list, you need to look
into how references work, because Perl will not
magically convert between scalars and lists for you.
See the perlref manpage.
Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a
script without a setuid or setgid bit set. This
doesn't make much sense.
Search pattern not terminated
(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a
// or m{} construct. Remember that bracketing
delimiters count nesting level. Missing the leading $
from a variable $m may cause this error.
%sseek() on unopened file
(W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function
on a filehandle that was either never opened or has
since been closed.
select not implemented
(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system
call.
sem%s not implemented
(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your
system.
semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
(S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to
duplicate a scalar that had previously been marked as
free.
Semicolon seems to be missing
(W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a
missing semicolon, or possibly some other missing
operator, such as a comma.
Send on closed socket
(W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed
sometime before now. Check your logic flow.
Sequence (? incomplete (F) A regular expression ended with
an incomplete extension (?. See the perlre manpage.
Sequence (?#... not terminated
(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by
a closing parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't
allowed. See the perlre manpage.
Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the
character reserved but has not yet been written. See
the perlre manpage.
Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
(F) You used a regular expression extension that
doesn't make sense. See the perlre manpage.
Server error
Also known as "500 Server error".
TThhiiss iiss aa CCGGII eerrrroorr,, nnoott aa PPeerrll eerrrroorr.
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
setegid() not implemented
(F) You tried to assign to $), and your operating
system doesn't support the setegid() system call (or
equivalent), or at least Configure didn't think so.
seteuid() not implemented
(F) You tried to assign to $>, and your operating
system doesn't support the seteuid() system call (or
equivalent), or at least Configure didn't think so.
setrgid() not implemented
(F) You tried to assign to $(, and your operating
system doesn't support the setrgid() system call (or
equivalent), or at least Configure didn't think so.
setruid() not implemented
(F) You tried to assign to $<, and your operating
system doesn't support the setruid() system call (or
equivalent), or at least Configure didn't think so.
Setuid/gid script is writable by world
(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is
writable by the world, because the world might have
written on it already.
shm%s not implemented
(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your
system.
shutdown() on closed fd
(W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket.
Seems a bit superfluous.
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?
sort is now a reserved word
(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever
runs into anymore. But before sort was a keyword,
people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number.
You probably blew it by not using <=> or cmp, or by
not using them correctly. See the sort entry in the
perlfunc manpage.
Sort subroutine didn't return single value
(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list
value with more or less than one element. See the
sort entry in the perlfunc manpage.
Split loop
(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
split shouldn't iterate more times than there are
characters of input, which is what happened.) See the
split entry in the perlfunc manpage.
Stat on unopened file <%s>
(W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an
equivalent file test) on a filehandle that was either
never opened or has since been closed.
Statement unlikely to be reached
(W) You did an exec() with some statement after it
other than a die(). This is almost always an error,
because exec() never returns unless there was a
failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
which does return. To suppress this warning, put the
exec() in a block by itself.
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 can may
break this.
Subroutine %s redefined
(W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this
warning, say
{
local $^W = 0;
eval "sub name { ... }";
}
Substitution loop
(P) The substitution was looping infinitely.
(Obviously, a substitution shouldn't iterate more
times than there are characters of input, which is
what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
the section on Quote and Quote-like Operators in the
perlop manpage.
Substitution pattern not terminated
(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of
a s/// or s{}{} construct. Remember that bracketing
delimiters count nesting level. Missing the leading $
from variable $s may cause this error.
Substitution replacement not terminated
(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a
s/// or s{}{} construct. Remember that bracketing
delimiters count nesting level. Missing the leading $
from variable $s may cause this error.
substr outside of string
(S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed
outside of a string. That is, the absolute value of
the offset was larger than the length of the string.
See the substr entry in the perlfunc manpage. This
warning is mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue
context (as the left hand side of an assignment or as
a subroutine argument for example).
suidperl is no longer needed since %s
(F) Your Perl was compiled with
--DDSETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a version of the
setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
syntax error
(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common
reasons include:
A keyword is misspelled.
A semicolon is missing.