Pod::Text(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Pod::Text(3)
NAME
Pod::Text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text
SYNOPSIS
use Pod::Text;
my $parser = Pod::Text->new (sentence => 0, width => 78);
# Read POD from STDIN and write to STDOUT.
$parser->parse_from_filehandle;
# Read POD from file.pod and write to file.txt.
$parser->parse_from_file ('file.pod', 'file.txt');
DESCRIPTION
Pod::Text is a module that can convert documentation in the POD format
(the preferred language for documenting Perl) into formatted ASCII. It
uses no special formatting controls or codes whatsoever, and its output
is therefore suitable for nearly any device.
As a derived class from Pod::Simple, Pod::Text supports the same
methods and interfaces. See Pod::Simple for all the details; briefly,
one creates a new parser with "Pod::Text->new()" and then normally
calls parse_file().
new() can take options, in the form of key/value pairs, that control
the behavior of the parser. The currently recognized options are:
alt If set to a true value, selects an alternate output format that,
among other things, uses a different heading style and marks
"=item" entries with a colon in the left margin. Defaults to
false.
code
If set to a true value, the non-POD parts of the input file will be
included in the output. Useful for viewing code documented with
POD blocks with the POD rendered and the code left intact.
errors
How to report errors. "die" says to throw an exception on any POD
formatting error. "stderr" says to report errors on standard
error, but not to throw an exception. "pod" says to include a POD
ERRORS section in the resulting documentation summarizing the
errors. "none" ignores POD errors entirely, as much as possible.
The default is "output".
indent
The number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default
indentation for "=over" blocks. Defaults to 4.
loose
If set to a true value, a blank line is printed after a "=head1"
heading. If set to false (the default), no blank line is printed
after "=head1", although one is still printed after "=head2". This
is the default because it's the expected formatting for manual
pages; if you're formatting arbitrary text documents, setting this
to true may result in more pleasing output.
margin
The width of the left margin in spaces. Defaults to 0. This is
the margin for all text, including headings, not the amount by
which regular text is indented; for the latter, see the indent
option. To set the right margin, see the width option.
nourls
Normally, L<> formatting codes with a URL but anchor text are
formatted to show both the anchor text and the URL. In other
words:
L<foo|http://example.com/>;
is formatted as:
foo <http://example.com/>;
This option, if set to a true value, suppresses the URL when anchor
text is given, so this example would be formatted as just "foo".
This can produce less cluttered output in cases where the URLs are
not particularly important.
quotes
Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text. If the value is a
single character, it is used as both the left and right quote; if
it is two characters, the first character is used as the left quote
and the second as the right quoted; and if it is four characters,
the first two are used as the left quote and the second two as the
right quote.
This may also be set to the special value "none", in which case no
quote marks are added around C<> text.
sentence
If set to a true value, Pod::Text will assume that each sentence
ends in two spaces, and will try to preserve that spacing. If set
to false, all consecutive whitespace in non-verbatim paragraphs is
compressed into a single space. Defaults to true.
stderr
Send error messages about invalid POD to standard error instead of
appending a POD ERRORS section to the generated output. This is
equivalent to setting "errors" to "stderr" if "errors" is not
already set. It is supported for backward compatibility.
utf8
By default, Pod::Text uses the same output encoding as the input
encoding of the POD source (provided that Perl was built with
PerlIO; otherwise, it doesn't encode its output). If this option
is given, the output encoding is forced to UTF-8.
Be aware that, when using this option, the input encoding of your
POD source must be properly declared unless it is US-ASCII or
Latin-1. POD input without an "=encoding" command will be assumed
to be in Latin-1, and if it's actually in UTF-8, the output will be
double-encoded. See perlpod(1) for more information on the
"=encoding" command.
width
The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side. Defaults
to 76.
The standard Pod::Simple method parse_file() takes one argument, the
file or file handle to read from, and writes output to standard output
unless that has been changed with the output_fh() method. See
Pod::Simple for the specific details and for other alternative
interfaces.
DIAGNOSTICS
Bizarre space in item
Item called without tag
(W) Something has gone wrong in internal "=item" processing. These
messages indicate a bug in Pod::Text; you should never see them.
Can't open %s for reading: %s
(F) Pod::Text was invoked via the compatibility mode pod2text()
interface and the input file it was given could not be opened.
Invalid errors setting "%s"
(F) The "errors" parameter to the constructor was set to an unknown
value.
Invalid quote specification "%s"
(F) The quote specification given (the "quotes" option to the
constructor) was invalid. A quote specification must be one, two,
or four characters long.
POD document had syntax errors
(F) The POD document being formatted had syntax errors and the
"errors" option was set to "die".
BUGS
Encoding handling assumes that PerlIO is available and does not work
properly if it isn't. The "utf8" option is therefore not supported
unless Perl is built with PerlIO support.
CAVEATS
If Pod::Text is given the "utf8" option, the encoding of its output
file handle will be forced to UTF-8 if possible, overriding any
existing encoding. This will be done even if the file handle is not
created by Pod::Text and was passed in from outside. This maintains
consistency regardless of PERL_UNICODE and other settings.
If the "utf8" option is not given, the encoding of its output file
handle will be forced to the detected encoding of the input POD, which
preserves whatever the input text is. This ensures backward
compatibility with earlier, pre-Unicode versions of this module,
without large numbers of Perl warnings.
This is not ideal, but it seems to be the best compromise. If it
doesn't work for you, please let me know the details of how it broke.
NOTES
This is a replacement for an earlier Pod::Text module written by Tom
Christiansen. It has a revamped interface, since it now uses
Pod::Simple, but an interface roughly compatible with the old
Pod::Text::pod2text() function is still available. Please change to
the new calling convention, though.
The original Pod::Text contained code to do formatting via termcap
sequences, although it wasn't turned on by default and it was
problematic to get it to work at all. This rewrite doesn't even try to
do that, but a subclass of it does. Look for Pod::Text::Termcap.
SEE ALSO
Pod::Simple, Pod::Text::Termcap, perlpod(1), pod2text(1)
The current version of this module is always available from its web
site at <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>;. It is also
part of the Perl core distribution as of 5.6.0.
AUTHOR
Russ Allbery <rra AT stanford.edu>, based very heavily on the original
Pod::Text by Tom Christiansen <tchrist AT mox.com> and its conversion
to Pod::Parser by Brad Appleton <bradapp AT enteract.com>. Sean Burke's
initial conversion of Pod::Man to use Pod::Simple provided much-needed
guidance on how to use Pod::Simple.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013
Russ Allbery <rra AT stanford.edu>.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
perl v5.16.3 2013-01-02 Pod::Text(3)
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