NAME¶
perldig - Dig up keywords in the local Perl documentation
SYNOPSIS¶
# Update the index (required before first start)
perldig -u
# Search for a keyword
perldig keyword(s)
DESCRIPTION¶
When using "perldig" for the first time, a new index needs to be
created. Just call
$ perldig -u
and everything happens automatically: A crawler will detect locally installed
Perl documentation pages, rummage through the POD and index them. When this
initial run has been completed, "perldig" is ready to process search
requests:
$ perldig frobnicate
1) pod/perlguts.pod 2) pod/perlxstut.pod 3) pod/perlnewmod.pod
Enter number of choice:
The command above shows a search for the keyword "frobnicate". Yes,
that's a word used in the Perl documentation! It shows three hits and asks the
user to enter a number between 1 and 3 to open the selected documentation page
in a pager program (typically "less"). In there, an in-text search
for the expression can be started by using the "/" (slash) command.
If two or more keywords are given, the search will yield pages that contain all
of them. When searching for phrases, please include quotes (make sure to quote
the quotes so the shell doesn't eat them):
$ perldig '"floating point"'
The underlying
swish-e search engine also understands expressions
connected via AND and OR:
$ perldig "'floating point' AND approximate AND 'real number'"
To keep the index up to date, it is probably a good idea to run a cronjob every
morning:
00 4 * * * /usr/bin/perldig -u >/dev/null 2>&1
If you can read German, please check out this article in the "Linux-
Magazin", where this script was originally published:
http://www.linux-magazin.de/Artikel/ausgabe/2003/10/perl/perl.html
EXAMPLES¶
# Update/create the index
$ perldig -u
$ perldig frobnicate
1) pod/perlguts.pod 2) pod/perlxstut.pod 3) pod/perlnewmod.pod
Enter number of choice: 1
[ ... perlguts man page shows ... ]
FILES¶
"perldig" puts the
swish-e index files into the folder
".perldig" in the user's home directory.
LEGALESE¶
Copyright 2003-2005 by Mike Schilli, all rights reserved. This program is free
software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
Perl itself.
AUTHOR¶
2003, Mike Schilli <m@perlmeister.com>