PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
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 -w 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.
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%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.
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%s syntax OK
(F) The final summary message when a perl -c succeeds.
%s: Command not found
(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl.
Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
%s: Expression syntax
(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl.
Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
%s: Undefined variable
(A) You've accidentally run your script through csh instead of Perl.
Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
%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.
-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'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.
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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.
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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 *),
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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 csh 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 "=>"
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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
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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:
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*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 -i switch on a special file, such as a file
in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
Can't do setegid!
(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
of suidperl.
Can't do seteuid!
(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
Can't do setuid
(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to 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
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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 -x on the #!
line.
Can't exec "%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 -S switch, but the copies of the script to execute
found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
(F) You used the -S switch, but the script to execute could not be
found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running
it.
Can't find %s on PATH
(F) You used the -S switch, but the script to execute could not be
found in the PATH.
Can't find label %s
(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
possible for us to go to. See the goto entry in the perlfunc
manpage.
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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
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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 -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 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.
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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
(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 -i switch failed for some reason, probably
because you don't have write permission to the directory.
Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and
tried to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
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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.
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PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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 \
(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 -e: %s
(F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
a -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)
with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value
itself. Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and
Page 15
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
repeat that.
Cannot open temporary file
(F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
a -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 (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.
Page 16
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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 <<FOO, the label FOO is too
long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write
code that triggers this error.
Did 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 "") 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.
Page 17
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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?
Page 18
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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 ($foo == 123)
Page 19
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
(or something like that).
gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
gethostent not implemented
(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(),
probably because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return
every hostname on the Internet.
get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
(W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to sys$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
Page 20
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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
<<EOF;).
Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
properly converting the text file format.
Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
handle that is in binary mode (as set by the binmode operator).
In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
converted with something like s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g before it can be
executed.
Illegal division by zero
(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
meaningless input.
Illegal modulus zero
(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
numbers don't take to this kindly.
Illegal 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.
Interpretation of 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 the
following switches: -[DIMUdmw].
In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
(F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
first used at 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
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PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
will simply assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
Insecure dependency in %s
(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't
like. The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid
or setgid, or when you specify -T to turn it on explicitly. The
tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or
indirectly from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your
trust. If any such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get
this error. 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
Page 22
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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.
Page 23
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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 csh too much. Variables
are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where
it can vary from one line to the next.
Missing 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.
Page 24
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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 -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 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 use or import while no such
importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see,
please see the use entry in the perlfunc manpage and the import entry
Page 25
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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
use or import 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 -d switch, but
for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't
parse right.
No dbm on this machine
(P) This is counted as an internal error, 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 -d switch, but
for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
ordinary subroutine call.
No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
(F) 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.
Page 26
PERLDIAG(1) PERLDIAG(1)
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 -I
(F) The argument to -I must follow the -I 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
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