1Pod::Text(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Pod::Text(3)
2
6 Pod::Text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text
7
9 use Pod::Text;
10 my $parser = Pod::Text->new (sentence => 0, width => 78);
11 # Read POD from STDIN and write to STDOUT.
13 $parser->parse_from_filehandle;
14 # Read POD from file.pod and write to file.txt.
16 $parser->parse_from_file ('file.pod', 'file.txt');
17
19 Pod::Text is a module that can convert documentation in the POD format
20 (the preferred language for documenting Perl) into formatted ASCII. It
21 uses no special formatting controls or codes whatsoever, and its output
22 is therefore suitable for nearly any device.
23 As a derived class from Pod::Simple, Pod::Text supports the same
25 methods and interfaces. See Pod::Simple for all the details; briefly,
26 one creates a new parser with "Pod::Text->new()" and then normally
27 calls parse_file().
28 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 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 code
38 If set to a true value, the non-POD parts of the input file will be
39 included in the output. Useful for viewing code documented with
40 POD blocks with the POD rendered and the code left intact.
41 errors
43 How to report errors. "die" says to throw an exception on any POD
44 formatting error. "stderr" says to report errors on standard
45 error, but not to throw an exception. "pod" says to include a POD
46 ERRORS section in the resulting documentation summarizing the
47 errors. "none" ignores POD errors entirely, as much as possible.
48 The default is "output".
50 indent
52 The number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default
53 indentation for "=over" blocks. Defaults to 4.
54 loose
56 If set to a true value, a blank line is printed after a "=head1"
57 heading. If set to false (the default), no blank line is printed
58 after "=head1", although one is still printed after "=head2". This
59 is the default because it's the expected formatting for manual
60 pages; if you're formatting arbitrary text documents, setting this
61 to true may result in more pleasing output.
62 margin
64 The width of the left margin in spaces. Defaults to 0. This is
65 the margin for all text, including headings, not the amount by
66 which regular text is indented; for the latter, see the indent
67 option. To set the right margin, see the width option.
68 nourls
70 Normally, L<> formatting codes with a URL but anchor text are
71 formatted to show both the anchor text and the URL. In other
72 words:
73 L<foo|http://example.com/>
75 is formatted as:
77 foo <http://example.com/>
79 This option, if set to a true value, suppresses the URL when anchor
81 text is given, so this example would be formatted as just "foo".
82 This can produce less cluttered output in cases where the URLs are
83 not particularly important.
84 quotes
86 Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text. If the value is a
87 single character, it is used as both the left and right quote; if
88 it is two characters, the first character is used as the left quote
89 and the second as the right quoted; and if it is four characters,
90 the first two are used as the left quote and the second two as the
91 right quote.
92 This may also be set to the special value "none", in which case no
94 quote marks are added around C<> text.
95 sentence
97 If set to a true value, Pod::Text will assume that each sentence
98 ends in two spaces, and will try to preserve that spacing. If set
99 to false, all consecutive whitespace in non-verbatim paragraphs is
100 compressed into a single space. Defaults to true.
101 stderr
103 Send error messages about invalid POD to standard error instead of
104 appending a POD ERRORS section to the generated output. This is
105 equivalent to setting "errors" to "stderr" if "errors" is not
106 already set. It is supported for backward compatibility.
107 utf8
109 By default, Pod::Text uses the same output encoding as the input
110 encoding of the POD source (provided that Perl was built with
111 PerlIO; otherwise, it doesn't encode its output). If this option
112 is given, the output encoding is forced to UTF-8.
113 Be aware that, when using this option, the input encoding of your
115 POD source must be properly declared unless it is US-ASCII or
116 Latin-1. POD input without an "=encoding" command will be assumed
117 to be in Latin-1, and if it's actually in UTF-8, the output will be
118 double-encoded. See perlpod(1) for more information on the
119 "=encoding" command.
120 width
122 The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side. Defaults
123 to 76.
124 The standard Pod::Simple method parse_file() takes one argument, the
126 file or file handle to read from, and writes output to standard output
127 unless that has been changed with the output_fh() method. See
128 Pod::Simple for the specific details and for other alternative
129 interfaces.
130
132 Bizarre space in item
133 Item called without tag
134 (W) Something has gone wrong in internal "=item" processing. These
135 messages indicate a bug in Pod::Text; you should never see them.
136 Can't open %s for reading: %s
138 (F) Pod::Text was invoked via the compatibility mode pod2text()
139 interface and the input file it was given could not be opened.
140 Invalid errors setting "%s"
142 (F) The "errors" parameter to the constructor was set to an unknown
143 value.
144 Invalid quote specification "%s"
146 (F) The quote specification given (the "quotes" option to the
147 constructor) was invalid. A quote specification must be one, two,
148 or four characters long.
149 POD document had syntax errors
151 (F) The POD document being formatted had syntax errors and the
152 "errors" option was set to "die".
153
155 Encoding handling assumes that PerlIO is available and does not work
156 properly if it isn't. The "utf8" option is therefore not supported
157 unless Perl is built with PerlIO support.
158
160 If Pod::Text is given the "utf8" option, the encoding of its output
161 file handle will be forced to UTF-8 if possible, overriding any
162 existing encoding. This will be done even if the file handle is not
163 created by Pod::Text and was passed in from outside. This maintains
164 consistency regardless of PERL_UNICODE and other settings.
165 If the "utf8" option is not given, the encoding of its output file
167 handle will be forced to the detected encoding of the input POD, which
168 preserves whatever the input text is. This ensures backward
169 compatibility with earlier, pre-Unicode versions of this module,
170 without large numbers of Perl warnings.
171 This is not ideal, but it seems to be the best compromise. If it
173 doesn't work for you, please let me know the details of how it broke.
174
176 This is a replacement for an earlier Pod::Text module written by Tom
177 Christiansen. It has a revamped interface, since it now uses
178 Pod::Simple, but an interface roughly compatible with the old
179 Pod::Text::pod2text() function is still available. Please change to
180 the new calling convention, though.
181 The original Pod::Text contained code to do formatting via termcap
183 sequences, although it wasn't turned on by default and it was
184 problematic to get it to work at all. This rewrite doesn't even try to
185 do that, but a subclass of it does. Look for Pod::Text::Termcap.
186
188 Pod::Simple, Pod::Text::Termcap, perlpod(1), pod2text(1)
189 The current version of this module is always available from its web
191 site at <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>. It is also
192 part of the Perl core distribution as of 5.6.0.
193
195 Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, based very heavily on the original
196 Pod::Text by Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com> and its conversion
197 to Pod::Parser by Brad Appleton <bradapp@enteract.com>. Sean Burke's
198 initial conversion of Pod::Man to use Pod::Simple provided much-needed
199 guidance on how to use Pod::Simple.
200
202 Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013
203 Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
204 This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
206 under the same terms as Perl itself.
207perl v5.16.3 2013-01-02 Pod::Text(3)