


POD2MAN(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      POD2MAN(1)


NAME
       pod2man - translate embedded Perl pod directives into man
       pages

SYNOPSIS
       pod2man [ --section=manext ] [ --release=relpatch ] [
       --center=string ] [ --date=string ] [ --fixed=font ] [
       --official ] [ --lax ] inputfile

DESCRIPTION
       pod2man converts its input file containing embedded pod
       directives (see the perlpod manpage) into nroff source
       suitable for viewing with nroff(1) or troff(1) using the
       man(7) macro set.

       Besides the obvious pod conversions, pod2man also takes
       care of func(), func(n), and simple variable references
       like $foo or @bar so you don't have to use code escapes
       for them; complex expressions like $fred{'stuff'} will
       still need to be escaped, though.  Other nagging little
       roffish things that it catches include translating the
       minus in something like foo-bar, making a long dash--like
       this--into a real em dash, fixing up "paired quotes",
       putting a little space after the parens in something like
       func(), making C++ and pi look right, making double
       underbars have a little tiny space between them, making
       ALLCAPS a teeny bit smaller in troff(1), and escaping
       backslashes so you don't have to.

OPTIONS
       center  Set the centered header to a specific string.  The
               default is "User Contributed Perl Documentation",
               unless the --official flag is given, in which case
               the default is "Perl Programmers Reference Guide".

       date    Set the left-hand footer string to this value.  By
               default, the modification date of the input file
               will be used.

       fixed   The fixed font to use for code refs.  Defaults to
               CW.

       official
               Set the default header to indicate that this page
               is of the standard release in case --center is not
               given.

       release Set the centered footer.  By default, this is the
               current perl release.

       section Set the section for the .TH macro.  The standard
               conventions on sections are to use 1 for user
               commands,  2 for system calls, 3 for functions, 4
               for devices, 5 for file formats, 6 for games, 7



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POD2MAN(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      POD2MAN(1)


               for miscellaneous information, and 8 for
               administrator commands.  This works best if you
               put your Perl man pages in a separate tree, like
               /usr/local/perl/man/.  By default, section 1 will
               be used unless the file ends in .pm in which case
               section 3 will be selected.

       lax     Don't complain when required sections aren't
               present.

Anatomy of a Proper Man Page
       For those not sure of the proper layout of a man page,
       here's an example of the skeleton of a proper man page.
       Head of the major headers should be setout as a =head1
       directive, and are historically written in the rather
       startling ALL UPPER CASE format, although this is not
       mandatory.  Minor headers may be included using =head2,
       and are typically in mixed case.

       NAME      Mandatory section; should be a comma-separated
                 list of programs or functions documented by this
                 podpage, such as:

                     foo, bar - programs to do something


       SYNOPSIS  A short usage summary for programs and
                 functions, which may someday be deemed
                 mandatory.

       DESCRIPTION
                 Long drawn out discussion of the program.  It's
                 a good idea to break this up into subsections
                 using the =head2 directives, like

                     =head2 A Sample Subection

                     =head2 Yet Another Sample Subection


       OPTIONS   Some people make this separate from the
                 description.

       RETURN VALUE
                 What the program or function returns if
                 successful.

       ERRORS    Exceptions, return codes, exit stati, and errno
                 settings.

       EXAMPLES  Give some example uses of the program.

       ENVIRONMENT
                 Envariables this program might care about.



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POD2MAN(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      POD2MAN(1)


       FILES     All files used by the program.  You should
                 probably use the F<> for these.

       SEE ALSO  Other man pages to check out, like man(1),
                 man(7), makewhatis(8), or catman(8).

       NOTES     Miscellaneous commentary.

       CAVEATS   Things to take special care with; sometimes
                 called WARNINGS.

       DIAGNOSTICS
                 All possible messages the program can print
                 out--and what they mean.

       BUGS      Things that are broken or just don't work quite
                 right.

       RESTRICTIONS
                 Bugs you don't plan to fix :-)

       AUTHOR    Who wrote it (or AUTHORS if multiple).

       HISTORY   Programs derived from other sources sometimes
                 have this, or you might keep a modification log
                 here.

EXAMPLES
           pod2man program > program.1
           pod2man some_module.pm > /usr/perl/man/man3/some_module.3
           pod2man --section=7 note.pod > note.7


DIAGNOSTICS
       The following diagnostics are generated by pod2man.  Items
       marked "(W)" are non-fatal, whereas the "(F)" errors will
       cause pod2man to immediately exit with a non-zero status.

       bad option in paragraph %d of %s: ``%s'' should be
           [%s]<%s>
           (W) If you start include an option, you should set it
           off as bold, italic, or code.

       can't open %s: %s
           (F) The input file wasn't available for the given
           reason.

       Improper man page - no dash in NAME header in paragraph %d
           of %s
           (W) The NAME header did not have an isolated dash in
           it.  This is considered important.

       Invalid man page - no NAME line in %s
           (F) You did not include a NAME header, which is



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POD2MAN(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      POD2MAN(1)


           essential.

       roff font should be 1 or 2 chars, not `%s'  (F)
           (F) The font specified with the --fixed option was not
           a one- or two-digit roff font.

       %s is missing required section: %s
           (W) Required sections include NAME, DESCRIPTION, and
           if you're using a section starting with a 3, also a
           SYNOPSIS.  Actually, not having a NAME is a fatal.

       Unknown escape: %s in %s
           (W) An unknown HTML entity (probably for an 8-bit
           character) was given via a E<> directive.  Besides
           amp, lt, gt, and quot, recognized entities are Aacute,
           aacute, Acirc, acirc, AElig, aelig, Agrave, agrave,
           Aring, aring, Atilde, atilde, Auml, auml, Ccedil,
           ccedil, Eacute, eacute, Ecirc, ecirc, Egrave, egrave,
           ETH, eth, Euml, euml, Iacute, iacute, Icirc, icirc,
           Igrave, igrave, Iuml, iuml, Ntilde, ntilde, Oacute,
           oacute, Ocirc, ocirc, Ograve, ograve, Oslash, oslash,
           Otilde, otilde, Ouml, ouml, szlig, THORN, thorn,
           Uacute, uacute, Ucirc, ucirc, Ugrave, ugrave, Uuml,
           uuml, Yacute, yacute, and yuml.

       Unmatched =back
           (W) You have a =back without a corresponding =over.

       Unrecognized pod directive: %s
           (W) You specified a pod directive that isn't in the
           known list of =head1, =head2, =item, =over, =back, or
           =cut.

NOTES
       If you would like to print out a lot of man page
       continuously, you probably want to set the C and D
       registers to set contiguous page numbering and even/odd
       paging, at least on some versions of man(7).  Settting the
       F register will get you some additional experimental
       indexing:

           troff -man -rC1 -rD1 -rF1 perl.1 perldata.1 perlsyn.1 ...

       The indexing merely outputs messages via .tm for each
       major page, section, subsection, item, and any X<>
       directives.

RESTRICTIONS
       None at this time.

BUGS
       The =over and =back directives don't really work right.
       They take absolute positions instead of offsets, don't
       nest well, and making people count is suboptimal in any



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POD2MAN(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      POD2MAN(1)


       event.

AUTHORS
       Original prototype by Larry Wall, but so massively hacked
       over by Tom Christiansen such that Larry probably doesn't
       recognize it anymore.



















































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