POD2TEXT(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide POD2TEXT(1)

POD2TEXT(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide POD2TEXT(1) #

POD2TEXT(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide POD2TEXT(1)

NNAAMMEE #

 pod2text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text

SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS #

 pod2text [--aacclloossttuu] [----ccooddee] [----eerrrroorrss=_s_t_y_l_e] [--ii _i_n_d_e_n_t]
     [--qq _q_u_o_t_e_s] [----nnoouurrllss] [----ssttddeerrrr] [--ww _w_i_d_t_h]
     [_i_n_p_u_t [_o_u_t_p_u_t ...]]

 pod2text --hh

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN #

 ppoodd22tteexxtt is a front-end for Pod::Text and its subclasses.  It uses them
 to generate formatted ASCII text from POD source.  It can optionally use
 either termcap sequences or ANSI color escape sequences to format the
 text.

 _i_n_p_u_t is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be embedded in
 code).  If _i_n_p_u_t isn't given, it defaults to "STDIN".  _o_u_t_p_u_t, if given,
 is the file to which to write the formatted output.  If _o_u_t_p_u_t isn't
 given, the formatted output is written to "STDOUT".  Several POD files
 can be processed in the same ppoodd22tteexxtt invocation (saving module load and
 compile times) by providing multiple pairs of _i_n_p_u_t and _o_u_t_p_u_t files on
 the command line.

OOPPTTIIOONNSS #

 --aa, ----aalltt
     Use an alternate output format that, among other things, uses a
     different heading style and marks "=item" entries with a colon in the
     left margin.

 ----ccooddee
     Include any non-POD text from the input file in the output as well.
     Useful for viewing code documented with POD blocks with the POD
     rendered and the code left intact.

 --cc, ----ccoolloorr
     Format the output with ANSI color escape sequences.  Using this
     option requires that Term::ANSIColor be installed on your system.

 ----eerrrroorrss=_s_t_y_l_e
     Set the error handling style.  "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 "die".

 --ii _i_n_d_e_n_t, ----iinnddeenntt==_i_n_d_e_n_t
     Set the number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default
     indentation for "=over" blocks.  Defaults to 4 spaces if this option
     isn't given.

 --hh, ----hheellpp
     Print out usage information and exit.

 --ll, ----lloooossee
     Print a blank line after a "=head1" heading.  Normally, no blank line
     is printed after "=head1", although one is still printed after
     "=head2", because this is the expected formatting for manual pages;
     if you're formatting arbitrary text documents, using this option is
     recommended.

 --mm _w_i_d_t_h, ----lleefftt--mmaarrggiinn=_w_i_d_t_h, ----mmaarrggiinn=_w_i_d_t_h
     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 --ii option.

 ----nnoouurrllss
     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 flag, if given, 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.

 --oo, ----oovveerrssttrriikkee
     Format the output with overstrike printing.  Bold text is rendered as
     character, backspace, character.  Italics and file names are rendered
     as underscore, backspace, character.  Many pagers, such as lleessss, know
     how to convert this to bold or underlined text.

 --qq _q_u_o_t_e_s, ----qquuootteess=_q_u_o_t_e_s
     Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text to _q_u_o_t_e_s.  If _q_u_o_t_e_s
     is a single character, it is used as both the left and right quote.
     Otherwise, it is split in half, and the first half of the string is
     used as the left quote and the second is used as the right quote.

     _q_u_o_t_e_s may also be set to the special value "none", in which case no
     quote marks are added around C<> text.

 --ss, ----sseenntteennccee
     Assume each sentence ends with two spaces and try to preserve that
     spacing.  Without this option, all consecutive whitespace in non-
     verbatim paragraphs is compressed into a single space.

 ----ssttddeerrrr
     By default, ppoodd22tteexxtt dies if any errors are detected in the POD
     input.  If ----ssttddeerrrr is given and no ----eerrrroorrss flag is present, errors
     are sent to standard error, but ppoodd22tteexxtt does not abort.  This is
     equivalent to "--errors=stderr" and is supported for backward
     compatibility.

 --tt, ----tteerrmmccaapp
     Try to determine the width of the screen and the bold and underline
     sequences for the terminal from termcap, and use that information in
     formatting the output.  Output will be wrapped at two columns less
     than the width of your terminal device.  Using this option requires
     that your system have a termcap file somewhere where Term::Cap can
     find it and requires that your system support termios.  With this
     option, the output of ppoodd22tteexxtt will contain terminal control
     sequences for your current terminal type.

 --uu, ----uuttff88
     By default, ppoodd22tteexxtt tries to use the same output encoding as its
     input encoding (to be backward-compatible with older versions).  This
     option says to instead force the output encoding to UTF-8.

     Be aware that, when using this option, the input encoding of your POD
     source should be properly declared unless it's US-ASCII.  Pod::Simple
     will attempt to guess the encoding and may be successful if it's
     Latin-1 or UTF-8, but it will warn, which by default results in a
     ppoodd22tteexxtt failure.  Use the "=encoding" command to declare the
     encoding.  See ppeerrllppoodd(1) for more information.

 --ww, ----wwiiddtthh==_w_i_d_t_h, --_w_i_d_t_h
     The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side.  Defaults to
     76, unless --tt is given, in which case it's two columns less than the
     width of your terminal device.

EEXXIITT SSTTAATTUUSS #

 As long as all documents processed result in some output, even if that
 output includes errata (a "POD ERRORS" section generated with
 "--errors=pod"), ppoodd22tteexxtt will exit with status 0.  If any of the
 documents being processed do not result in an output document, ppoodd22tteexxtt
 will exit with status 1.  If there are syntax errors in a POD document
 being processed and the error handling style is set to the default of
 "die", ppoodd22tteexxtt will abort immediately with exit status 255.

DDIIAAGGNNOOSSTTIICCSS #

 If ppoodd22tteexxtt fails with errors, see Pod::Text and Pod::Simple for
 information about what those errors might mean.  Internally, it can also
 produce the following diagnostics:

 -c (--color) requires Term::ANSIColor be installed
     (F) --cc or ----ccoolloorr were given, but Term::ANSIColor could not be
     loaded.

 Unknown option: %s
     (F) An unknown command line option was given.

 In addition, other Getopt::Long error messages may result from invalid
 command-line options.

EENNVVIIRROONNMMEENNTT #

COLUMNS #

     If --tt is given, ppoodd22tteexxtt will take the current width of your screen
     from this environment variable, if available.  It overrides terminal
     width information in TERMCAP.

TERMCAP #

     If --tt is given, ppoodd22tteexxtt will use the contents of this environment
     variable if available to determine the correct formatting sequences
     for your current terminal device.

AAUUTTHHOORR #

 Russ Allbery <rra@cpan.org>.

CCOOPPYYRRIIGGHHTT AANNDD LLIICCEENNSSEE #

 Copyright 1999-2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012-2019 Russ Allbery
 <rra@cpan.org>

 This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
 under the same terms as Perl itself.

SSEEEE AALLSSOO #

 Pod::Text, Pod::Text::Color, Pod::Text::Overstrike, Pod::Text::Termcap,
 Pod::Simple, ppeerrllppoodd(1)

 The current version of this script is always available from its web site
 at <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>.  It is also part
 of the Perl core distribution as of 5.6.0.

perl v5.36.3 2024-03-20 POD2TEXT(1)