What's wrong with cutting and pasting a relevant portion of the documentation that might help the OP? Even though I didn't explain it, I think it can still be quite helpful. Maybe I'm wrong, but I consider perldiag one of the oft-overlooked parts of the Perl documentation, therefore I don't assume someone has looked there when they post something like 'Why am I getting this error?' And why should I just post 'see perldoc perldiag' when I can just as easily snip the relevant chunk of a lengthy (3910 lines on my box) perldoc? Is PM screen real-estate so precious?

I --'ed your post

You should almost always post `see perldoc perldiag` instead of cutting and pasting. You're reminding the person that they should be looking in the documentation for their answers (and here is where your current answer is).

I mentioned where the documentation actually is, which I think is a sufficient reminder that the OP should look there in the future. I think a quick ^C & ^P of the part that interests them is an added bonus - since I already went to the effort of looking it up, why shouldn't I save someone else the trouble?

--
edan (formerly known as 3dan)

This copy-paste was usefull for me