Pod::PlainText(3pPerl Programmers Reference GuiPod::PlainText(3p)
Pod::PlainText - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text
use Pod::PlainText;
my $parser = Pod::PlainText->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');
Pod::PlainText 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 con-
trols or codes whatsoever, and its output is therefore suit-
able for nearly any device.
As a derived class from Pod::Parser, Pod::PlainText supports
the same methods and interfaces. See Pod::Parser for all
the details; briefly, one creates a new parser with
"Pod::PlainText->new()" and then calls either
parse_from_filehandle() or parse_from_file().
new() can take options, in the form of key/value pairs, that
control the behavior of the parser. The currently recog-
nized options are:
alt If set to a true value, selects an alternate output for-
mat that, among other things, uses a different heading
style and marks "=item" entries with a colon in the left
margin. Defaults to false.
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.
sentence
If set to a true value, Pod::PlainText will assume that
each sentence ends in two spaces, and will try to
preserve that spacing. If set to false, all consecutive
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Pod::PlainText(3pPerl Programmers Reference GuiPod::PlainText(3p)
whitespace in non-verbatim paragraphs is compressed into
a single space. Defaults to true.
width
The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side.
Defaults to 76.
The standard Pod::Parser method parse_from_filehandle()
takes up to two arguments, the first being the file handle
to read POD from and the second being the file handle to
write the formatted output to. The first defaults to STDIN
if not given, and the second defaults to STDOUT. The method
parse_from_file() is almost identical, except that its two
arguments are the input and output disk files instead. See
Pod::Parser for the specific details.
Bizarre space in item
(W) Something has gone wrong in internal "=item" pro-
cessing. This message indicates a bug in
Pod::PlainText; you should never see it.
Can't open %s for reading: %s
(F) Pod::PlainText was invoked via the compatibility
mode pod2text() interface and the input file it was
given could not be opened.
Unknown escape: %s
(W) The POD source contained an "E<>" escape that
Pod::PlainText didn't know about.
Unknown sequence: %s
(W) The POD source contained a non-standard internal
sequence (something of the form "X<>") that
Pod::PlainText didn't know about.
Unmatched =back
(W) Pod::PlainText encountered a "=back" command that
didn't correspond to an "=over" command.
Embedded Ctrl-As (octal 001) in the input will be mapped to
spaces on output, due to an internal implementation detail.
This is a replacement for an earlier Pod::Text module writ-
ten by Tom Christiansen. It has a revamped interface, since
it now uses Pod::Parser, but an interface roughly compatible
with the old Pod::Text::pod2text() function is still avail-
able. Please change to the new calling convention, though.
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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.
Pod::Parser, Pod::Text::Termcap, pod2text(1)
Please report bugs using <http://rt.cpan.org>.
Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, based very heavily on the
original Pod::Text by Tom Christiansen
<tchrist@mox.perl.com> and its conversion to Pod::Parser by
Brad Appleton <bradapp@enteract.com>.
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