warnings(3)



warnings(3perl)        Perl Programmers Reference Guide        warnings(3perl)

NAME
       warnings - Perl pragma to control optional warnings

SYNOPSIS
           use warnings;
           no warnings;

           use warnings "all";
           no warnings "all";

           use warnings::register;
           if (warnings::enabled()) {
               warnings::warn("some warning");
           }

           if (warnings::enabled("void")) {
               warnings::warn("void", "some warning");
           }

           if (warnings::enabled($object)) {
               warnings::warn($object, "some warning");
           }

           warnings::warnif("some warning");
           warnings::warnif("void", "some warning");
           warnings::warnif($object, "some warning");

DESCRIPTION
       The "warnings" pragma gives control over which warnings are enabled in
       which parts of a Perl program.  It's a more flexible alternative for
       both the command line flag -w and the equivalent Perl variable, $^W.

       This pragma works just like the "strict" pragma.  This means that the
       scope of the warning pragma is limited to the enclosing block.  It also
       means that the pragma setting will not leak across files (via "use",
       "require" or "do").  This allows authors to independently define the
       degree of warning checks that will be applied to their module.

       By default, optional warnings are disabled, so any legacy code that
       doesn't attempt to control the warnings will work unchanged.

       All warnings are enabled in a block by either of these:

           use warnings;
           use warnings 'all';

       Similarly all warnings are disabled in a block by either of these:

           no warnings;
           no warnings 'all';

       For example, consider the code below:

           use warnings;
           my @a;
           {
               no warnings;
               my $b = @a[0];
           }
           my $c = @a[0];

       The code in the enclosing block has warnings enabled, but the inner
       block has them disabled.  In this case that means the assignment to the
       scalar $c will trip the "Scalar value @a[0] better written as $a[0]"
       warning, but the assignment to the scalar $b will not.

   Default Warnings and Optional Warnings
       Before the introduction of lexical warnings, Perl had two classes of
       warnings: mandatory and optional.

       As its name suggests, if your code tripped a mandatory warning, you
       would get a warning whether you wanted it or not.  For example, the
       code below would always produce an "isn't numeric" warning about the
       "2:".

           my $a = "2:" + 3;

       With the introduction of lexical warnings, mandatory warnings now
       become default warnings.  The difference is that although the
       previously mandatory warnings are still enabled by default, they can
       then be subsequently enabled or disabled with the lexical warning
       pragma.  For example, in the code below, an "isn't numeric" warning
       will only be reported for the $a variable.

           my $a = "2:" + 3;
           no warnings;
           my $b = "2:" + 3;

       Note that neither the -w flag or the $^W can be used to disable/enable
       default warnings.  They are still mandatory in this case.

   What's wrong with -w and $^W
       Although very useful, the big problem with using -w on the command line
       to enable warnings is that it is all or nothing.  Take the typical
       scenario when you are writing a Perl program.  Parts of the code you
       will write yourself, but it's very likely that you will make use of
       pre-written Perl modules.  If you use the -w flag in this case, you end
       up enabling warnings in pieces of code that you haven't written.

       Similarly, using $^W to either disable or enable blocks of code is
       fundamentally flawed.  For a start, say you want to disable warnings in
       a block of code.  You might expect this to be enough to do the trick:

            {
                local ($^W) = 0;
                my $a =+ 2;
                my $b; chop $b;
            }

       When this code is run with the -w flag, a warning will be produced for
       the $a line:  "Reversed += operator".

       The problem is that Perl has both compile-time and run-time warnings.
       To disable compile-time warnings you need to rewrite the code like
       this:

            {
                BEGIN { $^W = 0 }
                my $a =+ 2;
                my $b; chop $b;
            }

       The other big problem with $^W is the way you can inadvertently change
       the warning setting in unexpected places in your code.  For example,
       when the code below is run (without the -w flag), the second call to
       "doit" will trip a "Use of uninitialized value" warning, whereas the
       first will not.

           sub doit
           {
               my $b; chop $b;
           }

           doit();

           {
               local ($^W) = 1;
               doit()
           }

       This is a side-effect of $^W being dynamically scoped.

       Lexical warnings get around these limitations by allowing finer control
       over where warnings can or can't be tripped.

   Controlling Warnings from the Command Line
       There are three Command Line flags that can be used to control when
       warnings are (or aren't) produced:

       -w   This is  the existing flag.  If the lexical warnings pragma is not
            used in any of you code, or any of the modules that you use, this
            flag will enable warnings everywhere.  See "Backward
            Compatibility" for details of how this flag interacts with lexical
            warnings.

       -W   If the -W flag is used on the command line, it will enable all
            warnings throughout the program regardless of whether warnings
            were disabled locally using "no warnings" or "$^W =0".  This
            includes all files that get included via "use", "require" or "do".
            Think of it as the Perl equivalent of the "lint" command.

       -X   Does the exact opposite to the -W flag, i.e. it disables all
            warnings.

   Backward Compatibility
       If you are used to working with a version of Perl prior to the
       introduction of lexically scoped warnings, or have code that uses both
       lexical warnings and $^W, this section will describe how they interact.

       How Lexical Warnings interact with -w/$^W:

       1.   If none of the three command line flags (-w, -W or -X) that
            control warnings is used and neither $^W nor the "warnings" pragma
            are used, then default warnings will be enabled and optional
            warnings disabled.  This means that legacy code that doesn't
            attempt to control the warnings will work unchanged.

       2.   The -w flag just sets the global $^W variable as in 5.005.  This
            means that any legacy code that currently relies on manipulating
            $^W to control warning behavior will still work as is.

       3.   Apart from now being a boolean, the $^W variable operates in
            exactly the same horrible uncontrolled global way, except that it
            cannot disable/enable default warnings.

       4.   If a piece of code is under the control of the "warnings" pragma,
            both the $^W variable and the -w flag will be ignored for the
            scope of the lexical warning.

       5.   The only way to override a lexical warnings setting is with the -W
            or -X command line flags.

       The combined effect of 3 & 4 is that it will allow code which uses the
       "warnings" pragma to control the warning behavior of $^W-type code
       (using a "local $^W=0") if it really wants to, but not vice-versa.

   Category Hierarchy
       A hierarchy of "categories" have been defined to allow groups of
       warnings to be enabled/disabled in isolation.

       The current hierarchy is:

           all -+
                |
                +- closure
                |
                +- deprecated
                |
                +- exiting
                |
                +- experimental --+
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::alpha_assertions
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::bitwise
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::const_attr
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::declared_refs
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::lexical_subs
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::postderef
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::private_use
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::re_strict
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::refaliasing
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::regex_sets
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::script_run
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::signatures
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::smartmatch
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::uniprop_wildcards
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::vlb
                |                 |
                |                 +- experimental::win32_perlio
                |
                +- glob
                |
                +- imprecision
                |
                +- io ------------+
                |                 |
                |                 +- closed
                |                 |
                |                 +- exec
                |                 |
                |                 +- layer
                |                 |
                |                 +- newline
                |                 |
                |                 +- pipe
                |                 |
                |                 +- syscalls
                |                 |
                |                 +- unopened
                |
                +- locale
                |
                +- misc
                |
                +- missing
                |
                +- numeric
                |
                +- once
                |
                +- overflow
                |
                +- pack
                |
                +- portable
                |
                +- recursion
                |
                +- redefine
                |
                +- redundant
                |
                +- regexp
                |
                +- severe --------+
                |                 |
                |                 +- debugging
                |                 |
                |                 +- inplace
                |                 |
                |                 +- internal
                |                 |
                |                 +- malloc
                |
                +- shadow
                |
                +- signal
                |
                +- substr
                |
                +- syntax --------+
                |                 |
                |                 +- ambiguous
                |                 |
                |                 +- bareword
                |                 |
                |                 +- digit
                |                 |
                |                 +- illegalproto
                |                 |
                |                 +- parenthesis
                |                 |
                |                 +- precedence
                |                 |
                |                 +- printf
                |                 |
                |                 +- prototype
                |                 |
                |                 +- qw
                |                 |
                |                 +- reserved
                |                 |
                |                 +- semicolon
                |
                +- taint
                |
                +- threads
                |
                +- uninitialized
                |
                +- unpack
                |
                +- untie
                |
                +- utf8 ----------+
                |                 |
                |                 +- non_unicode
                |                 |
                |                 +- nonchar
                |                 |
                |                 +- surrogate
                |
                +- void

       Just like the "strict" pragma any of these categories can be combined

           use warnings qw(void redefine);
           no warnings qw(io syntax untie);

       Also like the "strict" pragma, if there is more than one instance of
       the "warnings" pragma in a given scope the cumulative effect is
       additive.

           use warnings qw(void); # only "void" warnings enabled
           ...
           use warnings qw(io);   # only "void" & "io" warnings enabled
           ...
           no warnings qw(void);  # only "io" warnings enabled

       To determine which category a specific warning has been assigned to see
       perldiag.

       Note: Before Perl 5.8.0, the lexical warnings category "deprecated" was
       a sub-category of the "syntax" category.  It is now a top-level
       category in its own right.

       Note: Before 5.21.0, the "missing" lexical warnings category was
       internally defined to be the same as the "uninitialized" category. It
       is now a top-level category in its own right.

   Fatal Warnings
       The presence of the word "FATAL" in the category list will escalate
       warnings in those categories into fatal errors in that lexical scope.

       NOTE: FATAL warnings should be used with care, particularly "FATAL =>
       'all'".

       Libraries using warnings::warn for custom warning categories generally
       don't expect warnings::warn to be fatal and can wind up in an
       unexpected state as a result.  For XS modules issuing categorized
       warnings, such unanticipated exceptions could also expose memory leak
       bugs.

       Moreover, the Perl interpreter itself has had serious bugs involving
       fatalized warnings.  For a summary of resolved and unresolved problems
       as of January 2015, please see this perl5-porters post
       <http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2015/01/msg225235.html>.

       While some developers find fatalizing some warnings to be a useful
       defensive programming technique, using "FATAL => 'all'" to fatalize all
       possible warning categories -- including custom ones -- is particularly
       risky.  Therefore, the use of "FATAL => 'all'" is discouraged.

       The strictures module on CPAN offers one example of a warnings subset
       that the module's authors believe is relatively safe to fatalize.

       NOTE: users of FATAL warnings, especially those using "FATAL => 'all'",
       should be fully aware that they are risking future portability of their
       programs by doing so.  Perl makes absolutely no commitments to not
       introduce new warnings or warnings categories in the future; indeed, we
       explicitly reserve the right to do so.  Code that may not warn now may
       warn in a future release of Perl if the Perl5 development team deems it
       in the best interests of the community to do so.  Should code using
       FATAL warnings break due to the introduction of a new warning we will
       NOT consider it an incompatible change.  Users of FATAL warnings should
       take special caution during upgrades to check to see if their code
       triggers any new warnings and should pay particular attention to the
       fine print of the documentation of the features they use to ensure they
       do not exploit features that are documented as risky, deprecated, or
       unspecified, or where the documentation says "so don't do that", or
       anything with the same sense and spirit.  Use of such features in
       combination with FATAL warnings is ENTIRELY AT THE USER'S RISK.

       The following documentation describes how to use FATAL warnings but the
       perl5 porters strongly recommend that you understand the risks before
       doing so, especially for library code intended for use by others, as
       there is no way for downstream users to change the choice of fatal
       categories.

       In the code below, the use of "time", "length" and "join" can all
       produce a "Useless use of xxx in void context" warning.

           use warnings;

           time;

           {
               use warnings FATAL => qw(void);
               length "abc";
           }

           join "", 1,2,3;

           print "done\n";

       When run it produces this output

           Useless use of time in void context at fatal line 3.
           Useless use of length in void context at fatal line 7.

       The scope where "length" is used has escalated the "void" warnings
       category into a fatal error, so the program terminates immediately when
       it encounters the warning.

       To explicitly turn off a "FATAL" warning you just disable the warning
       it is associated with.  So, for example, to disable the "void" warning
       in the example above, either of these will do the trick:

           no warnings qw(void);
           no warnings FATAL => qw(void);

       If you want to downgrade a warning that has been escalated into a fatal
       error back to a normal warning, you can use the "NONFATAL" keyword.
       For example, the code below will promote all warnings into fatal
       errors, except for those in the "syntax" category.

           use warnings FATAL => 'all', NONFATAL => 'syntax';

       As of Perl 5.20, instead of "use warnings FATAL => 'all';" you can use:

          use v5.20;       # Perl 5.20 or greater is required for the following
          use warnings 'FATAL';  # short form of "use warnings FATAL => 'all';"

       If you want your program to be compatible with versions of Perl before
       5.20, you must use "use warnings FATAL => 'all';" instead.  (In
       previous versions of Perl, the behavior of the statements "use warnings
       'FATAL';", "use warnings 'NONFATAL';" and "no warnings 'FATAL';" was
       unspecified; they did not behave as if they included the "=> 'all'"
       portion.  As of 5.20, they do.)

   Reporting Warnings from a Module
       The "warnings" pragma provides a number of functions that are useful
       for module authors.  These are used when you want to report a module-
       specific warning to a calling module has enabled warnings via the
       "warnings" pragma.

       Consider the module "MyMod::Abc" below.

           package MyMod::Abc;

           use warnings::register;

           sub open {
               my $path = shift;
               if ($path !~ m#^/#) {
                   warnings::warn("changing relative path to /var/abc")
                       if warnings::enabled();
                   $path = "/var/abc/$path";
               }
           }

           1;

       The call to "warnings::register" will create a new warnings category
       called "MyMod::Abc", i.e. the new category name matches the current
       package name.  The "open" function in the module will display a warning
       message if it gets given a relative path as a parameter.  This warnings
       will only be displayed if the code that uses "MyMod::Abc" has actually
       enabled them with the "warnings" pragma like below.

           use MyMod::Abc;
           use warnings 'MyMod::Abc';
           ...
           abc::open("../fred.txt");

       It is also possible to test whether the pre-defined warnings categories
       are set in the calling module with the "warnings::enabled" function.
       Consider this snippet of code:

           package MyMod::Abc;

           sub open {
               if (warnings::enabled("deprecated")) {
                   warnings::warn("deprecated",
                                  "open is deprecated, use new instead");
               }
               new(@_);
           }

           sub new
           ...
           1;

       The function "open" has been deprecated, so code has been included to
       display a warning message whenever the calling module has (at least)
       the "deprecated" warnings category enabled.  Something like this, say.

           use warnings 'deprecated';
           use MyMod::Abc;
           ...
           MyMod::Abc::open($filename);

       Either the "warnings::warn" or "warnings::warnif" function should be
       used to actually display the warnings message.  This is because they
       can make use of the feature that allows warnings to be escalated into
       fatal errors.  So in this case

           use MyMod::Abc;
           use warnings FATAL => 'MyMod::Abc';
           ...
           MyMod::Abc::open('../fred.txt');

       the "warnings::warnif" function will detect this and die after
       displaying the warning message.

       The three warnings functions, "warnings::warn", "warnings::warnif" and
       "warnings::enabled" can optionally take an object reference in place of
       a category name.  In this case the functions will use the class name of
       the object as the warnings category.

       Consider this example:

           package Original;

           no warnings;
           use warnings::register;

           sub new
           {
               my $class = shift;
               bless [], $class;
           }

           sub check
           {
               my $self = shift;
               my $value = shift;

               if ($value % 2 && warnings::enabled($self))
                 { warnings::warn($self, "Odd numbers are unsafe") }
           }

           sub doit
           {
               my $self = shift;
               my $value = shift;
               $self->check($value);
               # ...
           }

           1;

           package Derived;

           use warnings::register;
           use Original;
           our @ISA = qw( Original );
           sub new
           {
               my $class = shift;
               bless [], $class;
           }

           1;

       The code below makes use of both modules, but it only enables warnings
       from "Derived".

           use Original;
           use Derived;
           use warnings 'Derived';
           my $a = Original->new();
           $a->doit(1);
           my $b = Derived->new();
           $a->doit(1);

       When this code is run only the "Derived" object, $b, will generate a
       warning.

           Odd numbers are unsafe at main.pl line 7

       Notice also that the warning is reported at the line where the object
       is first used.

       When registering new categories of warning, you can supply more names
       to warnings::register like this:

           package MyModule;
           use warnings::register qw(format precision);

           ...

           warnings::warnif('MyModule::format', '...');

FUNCTIONS
       Note: The functions with names ending in "_at_level" were added in Perl
       5.28.

       use warnings::register
           Creates a new warnings category with the same name as the package
           where the call to the pragma is used.

       warnings::enabled()
           Use the warnings category with the same name as the current
           package.

           Return TRUE if that warnings category is enabled in the calling
           module.  Otherwise returns FALSE.

       warnings::enabled($category)
           Return TRUE if the warnings category, $category, is enabled in the
           calling module.  Otherwise returns FALSE.

       warnings::enabled($object)
           Use the name of the class for the object reference, $object, as the
           warnings category.

           Return TRUE if that warnings category is enabled in the first scope
           where the object is used.  Otherwise returns FALSE.

       warnings::enabled_at_level($category, $level)
           Like "warnings::enabled", but $level specifies the exact call
           frame, 0 being the immediate caller.

       warnings::fatal_enabled()
           Return TRUE if the warnings category with the same name as the
           current package has been set to FATAL in the calling module.
           Otherwise returns FALSE.

       warnings::fatal_enabled($category)
           Return TRUE if the warnings category $category has been set to
           FATAL in the calling module.  Otherwise returns FALSE.

       warnings::fatal_enabled($object)
           Use the name of the class for the object reference, $object, as the
           warnings category.

           Return TRUE if that warnings category has been set to FATAL in the
           first scope where the object is used.  Otherwise returns FALSE.

       warnings::fatal_enabled_at_level($category, $level)
           Like "warnings::fatal_enabled", but $level specifies the exact call
           frame, 0 being the immediate caller.

       warnings::warn($message)
           Print $message to STDERR.

           Use the warnings category with the same name as the current
           package.

           If that warnings category has been set to "FATAL" in the calling
           module then die. Otherwise return.

       warnings::warn($category, $message)
           Print $message to STDERR.

           If the warnings category, $category, has been set to "FATAL" in the
           calling module then die. Otherwise return.

       warnings::warn($object, $message)
           Print $message to STDERR.

           Use the name of the class for the object reference, $object, as the
           warnings category.

           If that warnings category has been set to "FATAL" in the scope
           where $object is first used then die. Otherwise return.

       warnings::warn_at_level($category, $level, $message)
           Like "warnings::warn", but $level specifies the exact call frame, 0
           being the immediate caller.

       warnings::warnif($message)
           Equivalent to:

               if (warnings::enabled())
                 { warnings::warn($message) }

       warnings::warnif($category, $message)
           Equivalent to:

               if (warnings::enabled($category))
                 { warnings::warn($category, $message) }

       warnings::warnif($object, $message)
           Equivalent to:

               if (warnings::enabled($object))
                 { warnings::warn($object, $message) }

       warnings::warnif_at_level($category, $level, $message)
           Like "warnings::warnif", but $level specifies the exact call frame,
           0 being the immediate caller.

       warnings::register_categories(@names)
           This registers warning categories for the given names and is
           primarily for use by the warnings::register pragma.

       See also "Pragmatic Modules" in perlmodlib and perldiag.

perl v5.30.3                      2020-06-07                   warnings(3perl)

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