panic: POPSTACK

formerly_chris2 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Dear Monks,

I beg of your help with this confusing perl error, panic: POPSTACK, I have looked through all the docs, searched deja and perlmonks, and still cannot find any real information on it. Basically, it causes one of our scripts to die with the above mentioned error, but it doesn't identify a line number or anything other than "panic: POPSTACK". This script must be able to run for extended period of time without crapping out on untrappable errors. Has ANYONE heard of this panic: POPSTACK error and could you PLEASE explain what it is?

Thanks in advance,
-Chris

Comment on panic: POPSTACK

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Re: panic: POPSTACK by Beatnik (Parson) on Jun 27, 2001 at 12:38 UTC
perldiag doesn't mention panic: POPSTACK, but apparently it's a bug found in older versions of Perl (as in Perl 5.005). Version 5.6.0 and upwards have it fixed. Greetz Beatnik ... Quidquid perl dictum sit, altum viditur.	[reply]
Re: panic: POPSTACK by azatoth (Curate) on Jun 27, 2001 at 12:37 UTC
Post your code using code tags. Are you using a die in an eval anywhere? I recall reading somewhere that `panic : POPSTACK` errors are caused by a bug using die's in eval (often during interaction with an Apache session). Does any of this sound familiar? IIRC the bug is fixed in the 5.6.0 distro. Do a perl -v and tell me which version you're using? HTH Azatoth a.k.a Captain Whiplash Make Your Die Messages Full of Wisdom! Get YOUR PerlMonks Stagename here! Want to speak like a Londoner?	[reply] [d/l]
Re: panic: POPSTACK by mattr (Curate) on Jun 27, 2001 at 16:32 UTC
Hello, It would be useful if you could post your code, or provide a link to it (as a .txt file). I have not come across this myself although it seems like it would happen if you are doing something pathological (meant in a good way :). If you can figure out where this problem is happening (chop you script up into bits, put print statements into it, comment out code etc.) this will help us help you more quickly. Or maybe you will see the answer right away. Especially if you are doing anything you aren't sure about, or that might be putting heavy demands on the system (recursion, tons of arguments, whatever).	[reply]