


PERLDOC(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      PERLDOC(1)


NAME
       perldoc - Look up Perl documentation in Pod format.

SYNOPSIS
       perldoc [-h] [-v] [-t] [-u] [-m] [-l] [-F] [-i] [-V] [-T]
       [-r] [-ddestination_file] [-oformatname]
       [-MFormatterClassName] [-wformatteroption:value] [-nnroff-
       replacement] [-X] [-L language_code]
       PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName

       perldoc -f BuiltinFunction

       perldoc -L it -f BuiltinFunction

       perldoc -q FAQ Keyword

       perldoc -L fr -q FAQ Keyword

       See below for more description of the switches.

DESCRIPTION
       perldoc looks up a piece of documentation in .pod format
       that is embedded in the perl installation tree or in a
       perl script, and displays it via "pod2man | nroff -man |
       $PAGER". (In addition, if running under HP-UX, "col -x"
       will be used.) This is primarily used for the
       documentation for the perl library modules.

       Your system may also have man pages installed for those
       modules, in which case you can probably just use the
       man(1) command.

       If you are looking for a table of contents to the Perl
       library modules documentation, see the perltoc page.

OPTIONS
       -h   Prints out a brief help message.

       -v   Describes search for the item in detail (verbosely).

       -t   Display docs using plain text converter, instead of
            nroff. This may be faster, but it probably won't look
            as nice.

       -u   Skip the real Pod formatting, and just show the raw
            Pod source (Unformatted)

       -m module
            Display the entire module: both code and unformatted
            pod documentation.  This may be useful if the docs
            don't explain a function in the detail you need, and
            you'd like to inspect the code directly; perldoc will
            find the file for you and simply hand it off for
            display.



perl v5.10.1                2009-10-12                          1





PERLDOC(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      PERLDOC(1)


       -l   Display only the file name of the module found.

       -F   Consider arguments as file names; no search in
            directories will be performed.

       -f perlfunc
            The -f option followed by the name of a perl built in
            function will extract the documentation of this
            function from perlfunc.

            Example:

                  perldoc -f sprintf

       -q perlfaq-search-regexp
            The -q option takes a regular expression as an
            argument.  It will search the question headings in
            perlfaq[1-9] and print the entries matching the
            regular expression.  Example: "perldoc -q shuffle"

       -T   This specifies that the output is not to be sent to a
            pager, but is to be sent right to STDOUT.

       -d destination-filename
            This specifies that the output is to be sent neither
            to a pager nor to STDOUT, but is to be saved to the
            specified filename.  Example: "perldoc -oLaTeX
            -dtextwrapdocs.tex Text::Wrap"

       -o output-formatname
            This specifies that you want Perldoc to try using a
            Pod-formatting class for the output format that you
            specify.  For example: "-oman".  This is actually
            just a wrapper around the "-M" switch; using
            "-oformatname" just looks for a loadable class by
            adding that format name (with different
            capitalizations) to the end of different classname
            prefixes.

            For example, "-oLaTeX" currently tries all of the
            following classes: Pod::Perldoc::ToLaTeX
            Pod::Perldoc::Tolatex Pod::Perldoc::ToLatex
            Pod::Perldoc::ToLATEX Pod::Simple::LaTeX
            Pod::Simple::latex Pod::Simple::Latex
            Pod::Simple::LATEX Pod::LaTeX Pod::latex Pod::Latex
            Pod::LATEX.

       -M module-name
            This specifies the module that you want to try using
            for formatting the pod.  The class must at least
            provide a "parse_from_file" method.  For example:
            "perldoc -MPod::Perldoc::ToChecker".

            You can specify several classes to try by joining



perl v5.10.1                2009-10-12                          2





PERLDOC(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      PERLDOC(1)


            them with commas or semicolons, as in
            "-MTk::SuperPod;Tk::Pod".

       -w option:value or -w option
            This specifies an option to call the formatter with.
            For example, "-w textsize:15" will call
            "$formatter->textsize(15)" on the formatter object
            before it is used to format the object.  For this to
            be valid, the formatter class must provide such a
            method, and the value you pass should be valid.  (So
            if "textsize" expects an integer, and you do "-w
            textsize:big", expect trouble.)

            You can use "-w optionname" (without a value) as
            shorthand for "-w optionname:TRUE".  This is
            presumably useful in cases of on/off features like:
            "-w page_numbering".

            You can use a "=" instead of the ":", as in: "-w
            textsize=15".  This might be more (or less)
            convenient, depending on what shell you use.

       -X   Use an index if it is present -- the -X option looks
            for an entry whose basename matches the name given on
            the command line in the file
            "$Config{archlib}/pod.idx". The pod.idx file should
            contain fully qualified filenames, one per line.

       -L language_code
            This allows to specify the language code for desired
            language translation.  If "POD2::<language_code>"
            package doesn't exist (or isn't installed in your
            system), the switch will be ignored.  All available
            translation packages should be found under the
            "POD2::" namespace. See POD2::IT (or POD2::FR) in
            order to see how to create and integrate new
            localized "POD2::*" pod documentation packages in
            Pod::Perldoc.

       PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName
            The item you want to look up.  Nested modules (such
            as "File::Basename") are specified either as
            "File::Basename" or "File/Basename".  You may also
            give a descriptive name of a page, such as
            "perlfunc".

       -n some-formatter
            Specify replacement for nroff

       -r   Recursive search.

       -i   Ignore case.

       -V   Displays the version of perldoc you're running.



perl v5.10.1                2009-10-12                          3





PERLDOC(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      PERLDOC(1)


SECURITY
       Because perldoc does not run properly tainted, and is
       known to have security issues, when run as the superuser
       it will attempt to drop privileges by setting the
       effective and real IDs to nobody's or nouser's account, or
       -2 if unavailable.  If it cannot relinquish its
       privileges, it will not run.

ENVIRONMENT
       Any switches in the "PERLDOC" environment variable will be
       used before the command line arguments.

       Useful values for "PERLDOC" include "-oman", "-otext",
       "-otk", "-ortf", "-oxml", and so on, depending on what
       modules you have on hand; or exactly specify the formatter
       class with "-MPod::Perldoc::ToMan" or the like.

       "perldoc" also searches directories specified by the
       "PERL5LIB" (or "PERLLIB" if "PERL5LIB" is not defined) and
       "PATH" environment variables.  (The latter is so that
       embedded pods for executables, such as "perldoc" itself,
       are available.)

       "perldoc" will use, in order of preference, the pager
       defined in "PERLDOC_PAGER", "MANPAGER", or "PAGER" before
       trying to find a pager on its own. ("MANPAGER" is not used
       if "perldoc" was told to display plain text or unformatted
       pod.)

       One useful value for "PERLDOC_PAGER" is "less -+C -E".

       Having PERLDOCDEBUG set to a positive integer will make
       perldoc emit even more descriptive output than the "-v"
       switch does -- the higher the number, the more it emits.

SEE ALSO
       perlpod, Pod::Perldoc

AUTHOR
       Current maintainer: Sean M. Burke, <sburke@cpan.org>

       Past contributors are: Kenneth Albanowski
       <kjahds@kjahds.com>, Andy Dougherty
       <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, and many others.













perl v5.10.1                2009-10-12                          4


