pod2man - phpMan

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

NAME
pod2man - Convert POD data to formatted *roff input

SYNOPSIS
pod2man [--section=manext] [--release=version] [--center=string] [--date=string]
[--fixed=font] [--fixedbold=font] [--fixeditalic=font] [--fixedbolditalic=font]
[--name=name] [--official] [--lax] [--quotes=quotes] [--verbose] [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), normally 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 formatted output is written
to STDOUT. Several POD files can be processed in the same pod2man invocation (sav-
ing 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 head-
ers and footers to use; if not given, Pod::Man will assume various defaults. See
below or Pod::Man 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 gener-
ally 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 therefore 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-spe-
cific tweaks. See Pod::Man 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 --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 ver-
sion). 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
No longer used. pod2man used to check its input for validity as a manual page,
but this should now be done by podchecker(1) instead. Accepted for backwards
compatibility; this option no longer does anything.

-n name, --name=name
Set the name of the manual page to name. Without this option, the manual name
is set to the uppercased base name of the file being converted unless the man-
ual section is 3, in which case the path is parsed to see if it is a Perl mod-
ule path. If it is, a path like ".../lib/Pod/Man.pm" is converted into a name
like "Pod::Man". This option, if given, overrides any automatic determination
of the name.

Note that this option is probably not useful when converting multiple POD files
at once. The convention for Unix man pages for commands is for the man page
title to be in all-uppercase even if the command isn’t.

-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 sin-
gle 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 (but the font is still changed for troff out-
put).

-r, --release
Set the centered footer. By default, this is the version 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 modi-
fied: "; if this is the case, you may want to set --release to the last modi-
fied 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 commands, 2 for system calls, 3 for functions, 4 for
devices, 5 for file formats, 6 for games, 7 for miscellaneous information, and
8 for administrator commands. 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 consistent 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.

-v, --verbose
Print out the name of each output file as it is being generated.

DIAGNOSTICS
If pod2man fails with errors, see Pod::Man and Pod::Parser 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 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).

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, sub-
section, item, and any "X<>" directives. See Pod::Man for more details.

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

NOTES
For those not sure of the proper layout of a man page, here are some notes on writ-
ing 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 traditional 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 ref-
erences 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 doc-
umentation with too much markup.

The major headers should be set out using a "=head1" directive, and are histori-
cally 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 sec-
tion, 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 functions 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.

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 subsections "=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 sepa-
rate "=item". The specific option string should be enclosed in B<>. Any val-
ues 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 omit-
ted 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.

ERRORS
Exceptions, error return codes, exit statuses, and errno settings. Typically
used for function documentation; 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 docu-
mented in ERRORS. When documenting 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 documentation 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" with-
out telling the user how to increase the size of the input buffer (or at least
telling them that it isn’t possible) 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 gener-
ally 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 uppercase, no additional spe-
cial formatting is generally needed; they’re glaring enough as it is.

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 particu-
larly 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 giving
the name of a reference work. Man page references, if they use the standard
"name(section)" form, don’t have to be enclosed in L<> (although it’s recom-
mended), but other things in this section probably should be when appropriate.

If the package has a mailing list, include a URL or subscription instructions
here.

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 docu-
mentation tends to roam the wild for far longer than you expect and pick an
e-mail address that’s likely to last if possible.

For licensing the easiest way is to use the same licensing as Perl itself:

This library is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself.

This makes it easy for people to use your module with Perl. Note that this
licensing is neither an endorsement or a requirement, you are of course free to
choose any licensing.

HISTORY
Programs derived from other sources sometimes have this, or you might keep a
modification log here. If the log gets overly long or detailed, consider
maintaining it in a separate file, though.

In addition, some systems use CONFORMING TO to note conformance to relevant stan-
dards and MT-LEVEL to note safeness for use in threaded programs or signal han-
dlers. These headings are primarily useful when documenting parts of a C library.
Documentation of object-oriented libraries or modules may use CONSTRUCTORS and
METHODS sections for detailed documentation of the parts of the 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.

Section ordering varies, although NAME should always be the first section (you’ll
break some man page systems otherwise), and NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, and
OPTIONS generally 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 docu-
mented here and in Pod::Man, 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) depending on your system manual section numbering conven-
tions.

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

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

The current version of this script is always available from its web site at
<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>. It is also part of the Perl
core distribution as of 5.6.0.

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

This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the
same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.8.6 2006-03-13 POD2MAN(1)

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