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NAME
       pod2man - Convert POD data to formatted *roff input

SYNOPSIS
       pod2man [--section=manext] [--release=version] [--cen-
       ter=string] [--date=string] [--fixed=font] [--fixed-
       bold=font] [--fixeditalic=font] [--fixedbolditalic=font]
       [--official] [--lax] [--quotes=quotes] [input [output]
       ...]

       pod2man --help

DESCRIPTION
       pod2man is a front-end for Pod::Man, using it to generate
       *roff input from POD source.  The resulting *roff code is
       suitable for display on a terminal using nroff(1), nor-
       mally via man(1), or printing using troff(1).

       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 format-
       ted output is written to STDOUT.  Several POD files can be
       processed in the same pod2man invocation (saving module
       load and compile times) by providing multiple pairs of
       input and output files on the command line.

       --section, --release, --center, --date, and --official can
       be used to set the headers and footers to use; if not
       given, Pod::Man will assume various defaults.  See below
       or the Pod::Man manpage for details.

       pod2man assumes that your *roff formatters have a fixed-
       width font named CW.  If yours is called something else
       (like CR), use --fixed to specify it.  This generally only
       matters for troff output for printing.  Similarly, you can
       set the fonts used for bold, italic, and bold italic
       fixed-width output.

       Besides the obvious pod conversions, Pod::Man, and there-
       fore pod2man also takes care of formatting 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.  It also translates dashes that aren't
       used as hyphens into en dashes, makes long dashes--like
       this--into proper em dashes, fixes "paired quotes," and
       takes care of several other troff-specific tweaks.  See
       the Pod::Man manpage for complete information.

OPTIONS
       -c string, --center=string
           Sets the centered page header to string.  The default
           is "User Contributed Perl Documentation", but also see



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           --official below.

       -d string, --date=string
           Set the left-hand footer string to this value.  By
           default, the modification date of the input file will
           be used, or the current date if input comes from
           STDIN.

       --fixed=font
           The fixed-width font to use for vertabim text and
           code.  Defaults to CW.  Some systems may want CR
           instead.  Only matters for troff(1) output.

       --fixedbold=font
           Bold version of the fixed-width font.  Defaults to CB.
           Only matters for troff(1) output.

       --fixeditalic=font
           Italic version of the fixed-width font (actually,
           something of a misnomer, since most fixed-width fonts
           only have an oblique version, not an italic version).
           Defaults to CI.  Only matters for troff(1) output.

       --fixedbolditalic=font
           Bold italic (probably actually oblique) version of the
           fixed-width font.  Pod::Man doesn't assume you have
           this, and defaults to CB.  Some systems (such as
           Solaris) have this font available as CX.  Only matters
           for troff(1) output.

       -h, --help
           Print out usage information.

       -l, --lax
           Don't complain when required sections are missing.
           Not currently used, as POD checking functionality is
           not yet implemented in Pod::Man.

       -o, --official
           Set the default header to indicate that this page is
           part of the standard Perl release, if --center is not
           also given.

       -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
           characters, 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



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           (but the font is still changed for troff output).

       -r, --release
           Set the centered footer.  By default, this is the ver-
           sion of Perl you run pod2man under.  Note that some
           system an macro sets assume that the centered footer
           will be a modification date and will prepend something
           like "Last modified: "; if this is the case, you may
           want to set --release to the last modified date and
           --date to the version number.

       -s, --section
           Set the section for the ".TH" macro.  The standard
           section numbering convention is to use 1 for user com-
           mands, 2 for system calls, 3 for functions, 4 for
           devices, 5 for file formats, 6 for games, 7 for mis-
           cellaneous information, and 8 for administrator com-
           mands.  There is a lot of variation here, however;
           some systems (like Solaris) use 4 for file formats, 5
           for miscellaneous information, and 7 for devices.
           Still others use 1m instead of 8, or some mix of both.
           About the only section numbers that are reliably con-
           sistent are 1, 2, and 3.

           By default, section 1 will be used unless the file
           ends in .pm in which case section 3 will be selected.

DIAGNOSTICS
       If pod2man fails with errors, see the Pod::Man manpage and
       the Pod::Parser manpage for information about what those
       errors might mean.

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

       If you would like to print out a lot of man page continu-
       ously, 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).

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

       To get index entries on stderr, turn on the F register, as
       in:

           troff -man -rF1 perl.1

       The indexing merely outputs messages via ".tm" for each
       major page, section, subsection, item, and any "X<>"
       directives.  See the Pod::Man manpage for more details.





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BUGS
       Lots of this documentation is duplicated from the Pod::Man
       manpage.

       POD checking and the corresponding --lax option don't work
       yet.

NOTES
       For those not sure of the proper layout of a man page,
       here are some notes on writing a proper man page.

       The name of the program being documented is conventionally
       written in bold (using B<>) wherever it occurs, as are all
       program options.  Arguments should be written in italics
       (I<>).  Functions are traditionally written in italics; if
       you write a function as function(), Pod::Man will take
       care of this for you.  Literal code or commands should be
       in C<>.  References to other man pages should be in the
       form "manpage(section)", and Pod::Man will automatically
       format those appropriately.  As an exception, it's tradi-
       tional not to use this form when referring to module docu-
       mentation; use "L<Module::Name>" instead.

       References to other programs or functions are normally in
       the form of man page references so that cross-referencing
       tools can provide the user with links and the like.  It's
       possible to overdo this, though, so be careful not to
       clutter your documentation with too much markup.

       The major headers should be set out using 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.

       The standard sections of a manual page are:

       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

           Manual page indexers are often extremely picky about
           the format of this section, so don't put anything in
           it except this line.  A single dash, and only a single
           dash, should separate the list of programs or func-
           tions from the description.  Functions should not be
           qualified with "()" or the like.  The description
           should ideally fit on a single line, even if a man
           program replaces the dash with a few tabs.





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       SYNOPSIS
           A short usage summary for programs and functions.
           This section is mandatory for section 3 pages.

       DESCRIPTION
           Extended description and discussion of the program or
           functions, or the body of the documentation for man
           pages that document something else.  If particularly
           long, it's a good idea to break this up into subsec-
           tions "=head2" directives like:

               =head2 Normal Usage

               =head2 Advanced Features

               =head2 Writing Configuration Files

           or whatever is appropriate for your documentation.

       OPTIONS
           Detailed description of each of the command-line
           options taken by the program.  This should be separate
           from the description for the use of things like
           Pod::Usage.  This is normally presented as a list,
           with each option as a separate "=item".  The specific
           option string should be enclosed in B<>.  Any values
           that the option takes should be enclosed in I<>.  For
           example, the section for the option --section=manext
           would be introduced with:

               =item B<--section>=I<manext>

           Synonymous options (like both the short and long
           forms) are separated by a comma and a space on the
           same "=item" line, or optionally listed as their own
           item with a reference to the canonical name.  For
           example, since --section can also be written as -s,
           the above would be:

               =item B<-s> I<manext>, B<--section>=I<manext>

           (Writing the short option first is arguably easier to
           read, since the long option is long enough to draw the
           eye to it anyway and the short option can otherwise
           get lost in visual noise.)

       RETURN VALUE
           What the program or function returns, if successful.
           This section can be omitted for programs whose precise
           exit codes aren't important, provided they return 0 on
           success as is standard.  It should always be present
           for functions.





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       ERRORS
           Exceptions, error return codes, exit statuses, and
           errno settings.  Typically used for function documen-
           tation; program documentation uses DIAGNOSTICS
           instead.  The general rule of thumb is that errors
           printed to STDOUT or STDERR and intended for the end
           user are documented in DIAGNOSTICS while errors passed
           internal to the calling program and intended for other
           programmers are documented in ERRORS.  When document-
           ing a function that sets errno, a full list of the
           possible errno values should be given here.

       DIAGNOSTICS
           All possible messages the program can print out--and
           what they mean.  You may wish to follow the same docu-
           mentation style as the Perl documentation; see
           perldiag(1) for more details (and look at the POD
           source as well).

           If applicable, please include details on what the user
           should do to correct the error; documenting an error
           as indicating "the input buffer is too small" without
           telling the user how to increase the size of the input
           buffer (or at least telling them that it isn't possi-
           ble) aren't very useful.

       EXAMPLES
           Give some example uses of the program or function.
           Don't skimp; users often find this the most useful
           part of the documentation.  The examples are generally
           given as verbatim paragraphs.

           Don't just present an example without explaining what
           it does.  Adding a short paragraph saying what the
           example will do can increase the value of the example
           immensely.

       ENVIRONMENT
           Environment variables that the program cares about,
           normally presented as a list using "=over", "=item",
           and "=back".  For example:

               =over 6

               =item HOME

               Used to determine the user's home directory.  F<.foorc> in this
               directory is read for configuration details, if it exists.

               =back

           Since environment variables are normally in all upper-
           case, no additional special formatting is generally
           needed; they're glaring enough as it is.



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       FILES
           All files used by the program or function, normally
           presented as a list, and what it uses them for.  File
           names should be enclosed in F<>.  It's particularly
           important to document files that will be potentially
           modified.

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

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

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

       NOTES
           Miscellaneous commentary.

       SEE ALSO
           Other man pages to check out, like man(1), man(7),
           makewhatis(8), or catman(8).  Normally a simple list
           of man pages separated by commas, or a paragraph giv-
           ing the name of a reference work.  Man page refer-
           ences, if they use the standard "name(section)" form,
           don't have to be enclosed in L<>, but other things in
           this section probably should be when appropriate.  You
           may need to use the "L<...|...>" syntax to keep
           pod2man and pod2text from being too verbose; see
           perlpod(1).

           If the package has a web site, include a URL here.

       AUTHOR
           Who wrote it (use AUTHORS for multiple people).
           Including your current e-mail address (or some e-mail
           address to which bug reports should be sent) so that
           users have a way of contacting you is a good idea.
           Remember that program documentation tends to roam the
           wild for far longer than you expect and pick an e-mail
           address that's likely to last if possible.

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

       In addition, some systems use CONFORMING TO to note con-
       formance to relevant standards and MT-LEVEL to note safe-
       ness for use in threaded programs or signal handlers.
       These headings are primarily useful when documenting parts
       of a C library.  Documentation of object-oriented
       libraries or modules may use CONSTRUCTORS and METHODS sec-
       tions for detailed documentation of the parts of the



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       library and save the DESCRIPTION section for an overview;
       other large modules may use FUNCTIONS for similar reasons.
       Some people use OVERVIEW to summarize the description if
       it's quite long.  Sometimes there's an additional COPY-
       RIGHT section at the bottom, for licensing terms.  AVAIL-
       ABILITY is sometimes added, giving the canonical download
       site for the software or a URL for updates.

       Section ordering varies, although NAME should always be
       the first section (you'll break some man page systems oth-
       erwise), and NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, and OPTIONS gen-
       erally always occur first and in that order if present.
       In general, SEE ALSO, AUTHOR, and similar material should
       be left for last.  Some systems also move WARNINGS and
       NOTES to last.  The order given above should be reasonable
       for most purposes.

       Finally, as a general note, try not to use an excessive
       amount of markup.  As documented here and in the Pod::Man
       manpage, you can safely leave Perl variables, function
       names, man page references, and the like unadorned by
       markup and the POD translators will figure it out for you.
       This makes it much easier to later edit the documentation.
       Note that many existing translators (including this one
       currently) will do the wrong thing with e-mail addresses
       or URLs when wrapped in L<>, so don't do that.

       For additional information that may be more accurate for
       your specific system, see either man(5) or man(7) depend-
       ing on your system manual section numbering conventions.

SEE ALSO
       Pod::Man, Pod::Parser, man(1), nroff(1), troff(1), man(7)

       The man page documenting the an macro set may be man(5)
       instead of man(7) on your system.

AUTHOR
       Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, based very heavily on the
       original pod2man by Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen.
       Large portions of this documentation, particularly the
       sections on the anatomy of a proper man page, are taken
       from the pod2man documentation by Tom.














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