1POD2MAN(1)             Perl Programmers Reference Guide             POD2MAN(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       pod2man - Convert POD data to formatted *roff input
7

SYNOPSIS

9       pod2man [--center=string] [--date=string]
10           [--fixed=font] [--fixedbold=font] [--fixeditalic=font]
11           [--fixedbolditalic=font] [--name=name] [--official]
12           [--quotes=quotes] [--release[=version]]
13           [--section=manext] [--stderr] [--utf8] [--verbose]
14           [input [output] ...]
15
16       pod2man --help
17

DESCRIPTION

19       pod2man is a front-end for Pod::Man, using it to generate *roff input
20       from POD source.  The resulting *roff code is suitable for display on a
21       terminal using nroff(1), normally via man(1), or printing using
22       troff(1).
23
24       input is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be embedded in
25       code).  If input isn't given, it defaults to "STDIN".  output, if
26       given, is the file to which to write the formatted output.  If output
27       isn't given, the formatted output is written to "STDOUT".  Several POD
28       files can be processed in the same pod2man invocation (saving module
29       load and compile times) by providing multiple pairs of input and output
30       files on the command line.
31
32       --section, --release, --center, --date, and --official can be used to
33       set the headers and footers to use; if not given, Pod::Man will assume
34       various defaults.  See below or Pod::Man for details.
35
36       pod2man assumes that your *roff formatters have a fixed-width font
37       named "CW".  If yours is called something else (like "CR"), use --fixed
38       to specify it.  This generally only matters for troff output for
39       printing.  Similarly, you can set the fonts used for bold, italic, and
40       bold italic fixed-width output.
41
42       Besides the obvious pod conversions, Pod::Man, and therefore pod2man
43       also takes care of formatting func(), func(n), and simple variable
44       references like $foo or @bar so you don't have to use code escapes for
45       them; complex expressions like $fred{'stuff'} will still need to be
46       escaped, though.  It also translates dashes that aren't used as hyphens
47       into en dashes, makes long dashes--like this--into proper em dashes,
48       fixes "paired quotes," and takes care of several other troff-specific
49       tweaks.  See Pod::Man for complete information.
50

OPTIONS

52       -c string, --center=string
53           Sets the centered page header to string.  The default is "User
54           Contributed Perl Documentation", but also see --official below.
55
56       -d string, --date=string
57           Set the left-hand footer string to this value.  By default, the
58           modification date of the input file will be used, or the current
59           date if input comes from "STDIN".
60
61       --fixed=font
62           The fixed-width font to use for verbatim text and code.  Defaults
63           to "CW".  Some systems may want "CR" instead.  Only matters for
64           troff(1) output.
65
66       --fixedbold=font
67           Bold version of the fixed-width font.  Defaults to "CB".  Only
68           matters for troff(1) output.
69
70       --fixeditalic=font
71           Italic version of the fixed-width font (actually, something of a
72           misnomer, since most fixed-width fonts only have an oblique
73           version, not an italic version).  Defaults to "CI".  Only matters
74           for troff(1) output.
75
76       --fixedbolditalic=font
77           Bold italic (probably actually oblique) version of the fixed-width
78           font.  Pod::Man doesn't assume you have this, and defaults to "CB".
79           Some systems (such as Solaris) have this font available as "CX".
80           Only matters for troff(1) output.
81
82       -h, --help
83           Print out usage information.
84
85       -l, --lax
86           No longer used.  pod2man used to check its input for validity as a
87           manual page, but this should now be done by podchecker(1) instead.
88           Accepted for backward compatibility; this option no longer does
89           anything.
90
91       -n name, --name=name
92           Set the name of the manual page to name.  Without this option, the
93           manual name is set to the uppercased base name of the file being
94           converted unless the manual section is 3, in which case the path is
95           parsed to see if it is a Perl module path.  If it is, a path like
96           ".../lib/Pod/Man.pm" is converted into a name like "Pod::Man".
97           This option, if given, overrides any automatic determination of the
98           name.
99
100           Note that this option is probably not useful when converting
101           multiple POD files at once.  The convention for Unix man pages for
102           commands is for the man page title to be in all-uppercase even if
103           the command isn't.
104
105       -o, --official
106           Set the default header to indicate that this page is part of the
107           standard Perl release, if --center is not also given.
108
109       -q quotes, --quotes=quotes
110           Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text to quotes.  If
111           quotes is a single character, it is used as both the left and right
112           quote; if quotes is two characters, the first character is used as
113           the left quote and the second as the right quoted; and if quotes is
114           four characters, the first two are used as the left quote and the
115           second two as the right quote.
116
117           quotes may also be set to the special value "none", in which case
118           no quote marks are added around C<> text (but the font is still
119           changed for troff output).
120
121       -r, --release
122           Set the centered footer.  By default, this is the version of Perl
123           you run pod2man under.  Note that some system an macro sets assume
124           that the centered footer will be a modification date and will
125           prepend something like "Last modified: "; if this is the case, you
126           may want to set --release to the last modified date and --date to
127           the version number.
128
129       -s, --section
130           Set the section for the ".TH" macro.  The standard section
131           numbering convention is to use 1 for user commands, 2 for system
132           calls, 3 for functions, 4 for devices, 5 for file formats, 6 for
133           games, 7 for miscellaneous information, and 8 for administrator
134           commands.  There is a lot of variation here, however; some systems
135           (like Solaris) use 4 for file formats, 5 for miscellaneous
136           information, and 7 for devices.  Still others use 1m instead of 8,
137           or some mix of both.  About the only section numbers that are
138           reliably consistent are 1, 2, and 3.
139
140           By default, section 1 will be used unless the file ends in ".pm",
141           in which case section 3 will be selected.
142
143       --stderr
144           By default, pod2man puts any errors detected in the POD input in a
145           POD ERRORS section in the output manual page.  If --stderr is
146           given, errors are sent to standard error instead and the POD ERRORS
147           section is suppressed.
148
149       -u, --utf8
150           By default, pod2man produces the most conservative possible *roff
151           output to try to ensure that it will work with as many different
152           *roff implementations as possible.  Many *roff implementations
153           cannot handle non-ASCII characters, so this means all non-ASCII
154           characters are converted either to a *roff escape sequence that
155           tries to create a properly accented character (at least for troff
156           output) or to "X".
157
158           This option says to instead output literal UTF-8 characters.  If
159           your *roff implementation can handle it, this is the best output
160           format to use and avoids corruption of documents containing non-
161           ASCII characters.  However, be warned that *roff source with
162           literal UTF-8 characters is not supported by many implementations
163           and may even result in segfaults and other bad behavior.
164
165           Be aware that, when using this option, the input encoding of your
166           POD source must be properly declared unless it is US-ASCII or
167           Latin-1.  POD input without an "=encoding" command will be assumed
168           to be in Latin-1, and if it's actually in UTF-8, the output will be
169           double-encoded.  See perlpod(1) for more information on the
170           "=encoding" command.
171
172       -v, --verbose
173           Print out the name of each output file as it is being generated.
174

DIAGNOSTICS

176       If pod2man fails with errors, see Pod::Man and Pod::Simple for
177       information about what those errors might mean.
178

EXAMPLES

180           pod2man program > program.1
181           pod2man SomeModule.pm /usr/perl/man/man3/SomeModule.3
182           pod2man --section=7 note.pod > note.7
183
184       If you would like to print out a lot of man page continuously, you
185       probably want to set the C and D registers to set contiguous page
186       numbering and even/odd paging, at least on some versions of man(7).
187
188           troff -man -rC1 -rD1 perl.1 perldata.1 perlsyn.1 ...
189
190       To get index entries on "STDERR", turn on the F register, as in:
191
192           troff -man -rF1 perl.1
193
194       The indexing merely outputs messages via ".tm" for each major page,
195       section, subsection, item, and any "X<>" directives.  See Pod::Man for
196       more details.
197

BUGS

199       Lots of this documentation is duplicated from Pod::Man.
200

NOTES

202       For those not sure of the proper layout of a man page, here are some
203       notes on writing a proper man page.
204
205       The name of the program being documented is conventionally written in
206       bold (using B<>) wherever it occurs, as are all program options.
207       Arguments should be written in italics (I<>).  Functions are
208       traditionally written in italics; if you write a function as
209       function(), Pod::Man will take care of this for you.  Literal code or
210       commands should be in C<>.  References to other man pages should be in
211       the form "manpage(section)", and Pod::Man will automatically format
212       those appropriately.  As an exception, it's traditional not to use this
213       form when referring to module documentation; use "L<Module::Name>"
214       instead.
215
216       References to other programs or functions are normally in the form of
217       man page references so that cross-referencing tools can provide the
218       user with links and the like.  It's possible to overdo this, though, so
219       be careful not to clutter your documentation with too much markup.
220
221       The major headers should be set out using a "=head1" directive, and are
222       historically written in the rather startling ALL UPPER CASE format,
223       although this is not mandatory.  Minor headers may be included using
224       "=head2", and are typically in mixed case.
225
226       The standard sections of a manual page are:
227
228       NAME
229           Mandatory section; should be a comma-separated list of programs or
230           functions documented by this POD page, such as:
231
232               foo, bar - programs to do something
233
234           Manual page indexers are often extremely picky about the format of
235           this section, so don't put anything in it except this line.  A
236           single dash, and only a single dash, should separate the list of
237           programs or functions from the description.  Functions should not
238           be qualified with "()" or the like.  The description should ideally
239           fit on a single line, even if a man program replaces the dash with
240           a few tabs.
241
242       SYNOPSIS
243           A short usage summary for programs and functions.  This section is
244           mandatory for section 3 pages.
245
246       DESCRIPTION
247           Extended description and discussion of the program or functions, or
248           the body of the documentation for man pages that document something
249           else.  If particularly long, it's a good idea to break this up into
250           subsections "=head2" directives like:
251
252               =head2 Normal Usage
253
254               =head2 Advanced Features
255
256               =head2 Writing Configuration Files
257
258           or whatever is appropriate for your documentation.
259
260       OPTIONS
261           Detailed description of each of the command-line options taken by
262           the program.  This should be separate from the description for the
263           use of things like Pod::Usage.  This is normally presented as a
264           list, with each option as a separate "=item".  The specific option
265           string should be enclosed in B<>.  Any values that the option takes
266           should be enclosed in I<>.  For example, the section for the option
267           --section=manext would be introduced with:
268
269               =item B<--section>=I<manext>
270
271           Synonymous options (like both the short and long forms) are
272           separated by a comma and a space on the same "=item" line, or
273           optionally listed as their own item with a reference to the
274           canonical name.  For example, since --section can also be written
275           as -s, the above would be:
276
277               =item B<-s> I<manext>, B<--section>=I<manext>
278
279           (Writing the short option first is arguably easier to read, since
280           the long option is long enough to draw the eye to it anyway and the
281           short option can otherwise get lost in visual noise.)
282
283       RETURN VALUE
284           What the program or function returns, if successful.  This section
285           can be omitted for programs whose precise exit codes aren't
286           important, provided they return 0 on success as is standard.  It
287           should always be present for functions.
288
289       ERRORS
290           Exceptions, error return codes, exit statuses, and errno settings.
291           Typically used for function documentation; program documentation
292           uses DIAGNOSTICS instead.  The general rule of thumb is that errors
293           printed to "STDOUT" or "STDERR" and intended for the end user are
294           documented in DIAGNOSTICS while errors passed internal to the
295           calling program and intended for other programmers are documented
296           in ERRORS.  When documenting a function that sets errno, a full
297           list of the possible errno values should be given here.
298
299       DIAGNOSTICS
300           All possible messages the program can print out--and what they
301           mean.  You may wish to follow the same documentation style as the
302           Perl documentation; see perldiag(1) for more details (and look at
303           the POD source as well).
304
305           If applicable, please include details on what the user should do to
306           correct the error; documenting an error as indicating "the input
307           buffer is too small" without telling the user how to increase the
308           size of the input buffer (or at least telling them that it isn't
309           possible) aren't very useful.
310
311       EXAMPLES
312           Give some example uses of the program or function.  Don't skimp;
313           users often find this the most useful part of the documentation.
314           The examples are generally given as verbatim paragraphs.
315
316           Don't just present an example without explaining what it does.
317           Adding a short paragraph saying what the example will do can
318           increase the value of the example immensely.
319
320       ENVIRONMENT
321           Environment variables that the program cares about, normally
322           presented as a list using "=over", "=item", and "=back".  For
323           example:
324
325               =over 6
326
327               =item HOME
328
329               Used to determine the user's home directory.  F<.foorc> in this
330               directory is read for configuration details, if it exists.
331
332               =back
333
334           Since environment variables are normally in all uppercase, no
335           additional special formatting is generally needed; they're glaring
336           enough as it is.
337
338       FILES
339           All files used by the program or function, normally presented as a
340           list, and what it uses them for.  File names should be enclosed in
341           F<>.  It's particularly important to document files that will be
342           potentially modified.
343
344       CAVEATS
345           Things to take special care with, sometimes called WARNINGS.
346
347       BUGS
348           Things that are broken or just don't work quite right.
349
350       RESTRICTIONS
351           Bugs you don't plan to fix.  :-)
352
353       NOTES
354           Miscellaneous commentary.
355
356       AUTHOR
357           Who wrote it (use AUTHORS for multiple people).  Including your
358           current e-mail address (or some e-mail address to which bug reports
359           should be sent) so that users have a way of contacting you is a
360           good idea.  Remember that program documentation tends to roam the
361           wild for far longer than you expect and pick an e-mail address
362           that's likely to last if possible.
363
364       HISTORY
365           Programs derived from other sources sometimes have this, or you
366           might keep a modification log here.  If the log gets overly long or
367           detailed, consider maintaining it in a separate file, though.
368
369       COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
370           For copyright
371
372               Copyright YEAR(s) by YOUR NAME(s)
373
374           (No, (C) is not needed.  No, "all rights reserved" is not needed.)
375
376           For licensing the easiest way is to use the same licensing as Perl
377           itself:
378
379               This library is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify
380               it under the same terms as Perl itself.
381
382           This makes it easy for people to use your module with Perl.  Note
383           that this licensing is neither an endorsement or a requirement, you
384           are of course free to choose any licensing.
385
386       SEE ALSO
387           Other man pages to check out, like man(1), man(7), makewhatis(8),
388           or catman(8).  Normally a simple list of man pages separated by
389           commas, or a paragraph giving the name of a reference work.  Man
390           page references, if they use the standard "name(section)" form,
391           don't have to be enclosed in L<> (although it's recommended), but
392           other things in this section probably should be when appropriate.
393
394           If the package has a mailing list, include a URL or subscription
395           instructions here.
396
397           If the package has a web site, include a URL here.
398
399       In addition, some systems use CONFORMING TO to note conformance to
400       relevant standards and MT-LEVEL to note safeness for use in threaded
401       programs or signal handlers.  These headings are primarily useful when
402       documenting parts of a C library.  Documentation of object-oriented
403       libraries or modules may use CONSTRUCTORS and METHODS sections for
404       detailed documentation of the parts of the library and save the
405       DESCRIPTION section for an overview; other large modules may use
406       FUNCTIONS for similar reasons.  Some people use OVERVIEW to summarize
407       the description if it's quite long.
408
409       Section ordering varies, although NAME should always be the first
410       section (you'll break some man page systems otherwise), and NAME,
411       SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, and OPTIONS generally always occur first and in
412       that order if present.  In general, SEE ALSO, AUTHOR, and similar
413       material should be left for last.  Some systems also move WARNINGS and
414       NOTES to last.  The order given above should be reasonable for most
415       purposes.
416
417       Finally, as a general note, try not to use an excessive amount of
418       markup.  As documented here and in Pod::Man, you can safely leave Perl
419       variables, function names, man page references, and the like unadorned
420       by markup and the POD translators will figure it out for you.  This
421       makes it much easier to later edit the documentation.  Note that many
422       existing translators (including this one currently) will do the wrong
423       thing with e-mail addresses when wrapped in L<>, so don't do that.
424
425       For additional information that may be more accurate for your specific
426       system, see either man(5) or man(7) depending on your system manual
427       section numbering conventions.
428

SEE ALSO

430       Pod::Man, Pod::Simple, man(1), nroff(1), perlpod(1), podchecker(1),
431       troff(1), man(7)
432
433       The man page documenting the an macro set may be man(5) instead of
434       man(7) on your system.
435
436       The current version of this script is always available from its web
437       site at <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>.  It is also
438       part of the Perl core distribution as of 5.6.0.
439

AUTHOR

441       Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, based very heavily on the original
442       pod2man by Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen.  Large portions of this
443       documentation, particularly the sections on the anatomy of a proper man
444       page, are taken from the pod2man documentation by Tom.
445
447       Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008 Russ Allbery
448       <rra@stanford.edu>.
449
450       This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
451       under the same terms as Perl itself.
452
453
454
455perl v5.10.1                      2017-03-22                        POD2MAN(1)
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