Pod::PlainText(3pm)

1Pod::PlainText(3pm)    Perl Programmers Reference Guide    Pod::PlainText(3pm)
2
3
4

NAME

6       Pod::PlainText - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text
7

SYNOPSIS

9           use Pod::PlainText;
10           my $parser = Pod::PlainText->new (sentence => 0, width => 78);
11
12           # Read POD from STDIN and write to STDOUT.
13           $parser->parse_from_filehandle;
14
15           # Read POD from file.pod and write to file.txt.
16           $parser->parse_from_file ('file.pod', 'file.txt');
17

DESCRIPTION

19       Pod::PlainText is a module that can convert documentation in the POD
20       format (the preferred language for documenting Perl) into formatted
21       ASCII.  It uses no special formatting controls or codes whatsoever, and
22       its output is therefore suitable for nearly any device.
23
24       As a derived class from Pod::Parser, Pod::PlainText supports the same
25       methods and interfaces.  See Pod::Parser for all the details; briefly,
26       one creates a new parser with "Pod::PlainText->new()" and then calls
27       either parse_from_filehandle() or parse_from_file().
28
29       new() can take options, in the form of key/value pairs, that control
30       the behavior of the parser.  The currently recognized options are:
31
32       alt If set to a true value, selects an alternate output format that,
33           among other things, uses a different heading style and marks
34           "=item" entries with a colon in the left margin.  Defaults to
35           false.
36
37       indent
38           The number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default
39           indentation for "=over" blocks.  Defaults to 4.
40
41       loose
42           If set to a true value, a blank line is printed after a "=headN"
43           headings.  If set to false (the default), no blank line is printed
44           after "=headN".  This is the default because it's the expected
45           formatting for manual pages; if you're formatting arbitrary text
46           documents, setting this to true may result in more pleasing output.
47
48       sentence
49           If set to a true value, Pod::PlainText will assume that each
50           sentence ends in two spaces, and will try to preserve that spacing.
51           If set to false, all consecutive whitespace in non-verbatim
52           paragraphs is compressed into a single space.  Defaults to true.
53
54       width
55           The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side.  Defaults
56           to 76.
57
58       The standard Pod::Parser method parse_from_filehandle() takes up to two
59       arguments, the first being the file handle to read POD from and the
60       second being the file handle to write the formatted output to.  The
61       first defaults to STDIN if not given, and the second defaults to
62       STDOUT.  The method parse_from_file() is almost identical, except that
63       its two arguments are the input and output disk files instead.  See
64       Pod::Parser for the specific details.
65

DIAGNOSTICS

67       Bizarre space in item
68           (W) Something has gone wrong in internal "=item" processing.  This
69           message indicates a bug in Pod::PlainText; you should never see it.
70
71       Can't open %s for reading: %s
72           (F) Pod::PlainText was invoked via the compatibility mode
73           pod2text() interface and the input file it was given could not be
74           opened.
75
76       Unknown escape: %s
77           (W) The POD source contained an "E<>" escape that Pod::PlainText
78           didn't know about.
79
80       Unknown sequence: %s
81           (W) The POD source contained a non-standard internal sequence
82           (something of the form "X<>") that Pod::PlainText didn't know
83           about.
84
85       Unmatched =back
86           (W) Pod::PlainText encountered a "=back" command that didn't
87           correspond to an "=over" command.
88

RESTRICTIONS

90       Embedded Ctrl-As (octal 001) in the input will be mapped to spaces on
91       output, due to an internal implementation detail.
92

NOTES

94       This is a replacement for an earlier Pod::Text module written by Tom
95       Christiansen.  It has a revamped interface, since it now uses
96       Pod::Parser, but an interface roughly compatible with the old
97       Pod::Text::pod2text() function is still available.  Please change to
98       the new calling convention, though.
99
100       The original Pod::Text contained code to do formatting via termcap
101       sequences, although it wasn't turned on by default and it was
102       problematic to get it to work at all.  This rewrite doesn't even try to
103       do that, but a subclass of it does.  Look for Pod::Text::Termcap.
104

AUTHOR

109       Please report bugs using <http://rt.cpan.org>.
110
111       Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, based very heavily on the original
112       Pod::Text by Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com> and its conversion
113       to Pod::Parser by Brad Appleton <bradapp@enteract.com>.
114
115
116
117perl v5.10.1                      2009-04-14               Pod::PlainText(3pm)