Produces a message on STDERR just like die, but doesn't exit or throw
an exception.
If LIST is empty and $@
already contains a value (typically from a
previous eval) that value is used after appending "\t...caught"
to $@
. This is useful for staying almost, but not entirely similar to
die.
If $@
is empty then the string "Warning: Something's wrong"
is used.
No message is printed if there is a $SIG{__WARN__}
handler
installed. It is the handler's responsibility to deal with the message
as it sees fit (like, for instance, converting it into a die). Most
handlers must therefore make arrangements to actually display the
warnings that they are not prepared to deal with, by calling warn
again in the handler. Note that this is quite safe and will not
produce an endless loop, since __WARN__
hooks are not called from
inside one.
You will find this behavior is slightly different from that of
$SIG{__DIE__}
handlers (which don't suppress the error text, but can
instead call die again to change it).
Using a __WARN__
handler provides a powerful way to silence all
warnings (even the so-called mandatory ones). An example:
- # wipe out *all* compile-time warnings
- BEGIN { $SIG{'__WARN__'} = sub { warn $_[0] if $DOWARN } }
- my $foo = 10;
- my $foo = 20; # no warning about duplicate my $foo,
- # but hey, you asked for it!
- # no compile-time or run-time warnings before here
- $DOWARN = 1;
- # run-time warnings enabled after here
- warn "\$foo is alive and $foo!"; # does show up
See perlvar for details on setting %SIG
entries, and for more
examples. See the Carp module for other kinds of warnings using its
carp() and cluck() functions.