NAME¶
Pod::PlainText - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text
SYNOPSIS¶
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');
DESCRIPTION¶
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 controls or codes whatsoever, and its output is therefore
suitable 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 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.
- 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
"=headN" headings. If set to false (the default), no blank line
is printed after "=headN". 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 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.
DIAGNOSTICS¶
- Bizarre space in item
- (W) Something has gone wrong in internal "=item"
processing. 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.
RESTRICTIONS¶
Embedded Ctrl-As (octal 001) in the input will be mapped to spaces on output,
due to an internal implementation detail.
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::Parser, 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::Parser, Pod::Text::Termcap,
pod2text(1)
AUTHOR¶
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>.