POD2TEXT(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide POD2TEXT(1)NAMEpod2text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text
SYNOPSISpod2text [-aclost] [--code] [-i indent] [-q quotes]
[-w width] [input [output]]
pod2text-h
DESCRIPTIONpod2text 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.
input is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be
embedded in code). If input isn't given, it defaults to
STDIN. output, if given, is the file to which to write the
formatted output. If output isn't given, the formatted out-
put is written to STDOUT.
OPTIONS-a, --alt
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.
--code
Include any non-POD text from the input file in the out-
put as well. Useful for viewing code documented with
POD blocks with the POD rendered and the code left
intact.
-c, --color
Format the output with ANSI color escape sequences.
Using this option requires that Term::ANSIColor be
installed on your system.
-i indent, --indent=indent
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.
-h, --help
Print out usage information and exit.
-l, --loose
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 format-
ting arbitrary text documents, using this option is
perl v5.8.8 2006-06-30 1
POD2TEXT(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide POD2TEXT(1)
recommended.
-m width, --left-margin=width, --margin=width
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 -i option.
-o, --overstrike
Format the output with overstruck printing. Bold text
is rendered as character, backspace, character. Italics
and file names are rendered as underscore, backspace,
character. Many pagers, such as less, know how to con-
vert this to bold or underlined text.
-q quotes, --quotes=quotes
Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text to
quotes. If quotes is a single character, it is used as
both the left and right quote; if quotes is two charac-
ters, the first character is used as the left quote and
the second as the right quoted; and if quotes is four
characters, the first two are used as the left quote and
the second two as the right quote.
quotes may also be set to the special value "none", in
which case no quote marks are added around C<> text.
-s, --sentence
Assume each sentence ends with two spaces and try to
preserve that spacing. Without this option, all consecu-
tive whitespace in non-verbatim paragraphs is compressed
into a single space.
-t, --termcap
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. Out-
put 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 sup-
port termios. With this option, the output of pod2text
will contain terminal control sequences for your current
terminal type.
-w, --width=width, -width
The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side.
Defaults to 76, unless -t is given, in which case it's
two columns less than the width of your terminal device.
DIAGNOSTICS
If pod2text fails with errors, see Pod::Text and Pod::Parser
perl v5.8.8 2006-06-30 2
POD2TEXT(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide POD2TEXT(1)
for information about what those errors might mean. Inter-
nally, it can also produce the following diagnostics:
-c (--color) requires Term::ANSIColor be installed
(F) -c or --color 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.
ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS
If -t is given, pod2text will take the current width of
your screen from this environment variable, if avail-
able. It overrides terminal width information in
TERMCAP.
TERMCAP
If -t is given, pod2text will use the contents of this
environment variable if available to determine the
correct formatting sequences for your current terminal
device.
SEE ALSO
Pod::Text, Pod::Text::Color, Pod::Text::Overstrike,
Pod::Text::Termcap, Pod::Parser
The current version of this script 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@stanford.edu>.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001 by Russ Allbery
<rra@stanford.edu>.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it
and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
perl v5.8.8 2006-06-30 3
