{
"content": [
{
"type": "text",
"text": "# pod2text (info)\n\n## NAME\n\npod2text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text\n\n## SYNOPSIS\n\npod2text [-aclostu] [--code] [--errors=style] [-i indent]\n[-qquotes] [--nourls] [--stderr] [-wwidth]\n[input [output ...]]\npod2text -h\n\n## DESCRIPTION\n\npod2text is a front-end for Pod::Text and its subclasses. It uses them\nto generate formatted ASCII text from POD source. It can optionally\nuse either termcap sequences or ANSI color escape sequences to format\nthe text.\n\n## Sections\n\n- **NAME**\n- **SYNOPSIS**\n- **DESCRIPTION**\n- **OPTIONS** (11 subsections)\n- **EXIT STATUS**\n- **DIAGNOSTICS**\n- **ENVIRONMENT**\n- **AUTHOR**\n- **COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE**\n- **SEE ALSO**\n\nUse structuredContent.sections for detailed options, examples, and full documentation.\n"
}
],
"structuredContent": {
"command": "pod2text",
"section": "",
"mode": "info",
"summary": "pod2text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text",
"synopsis": "pod2text [-aclostu] [--code] [--errors=style] [-i indent]\n[-qquotes] [--nourls] [--stderr] [-wwidth]\n[input [output ...]]\npod2text -h",
"tldr_summary": null,
"tldr_examples": [],
"tldr_source": null,
"flags": [
{
"flag": "-a",
"long": "--alt",
"arg": null,
"description": "Use an alternate output format that, among other things, uses a different heading style and marks \"=item\" entries with a colon in the left margin."
},
{
"flag": "",
"long": "--code",
"arg": null,
"description": "Include any non-POD text from the input file in the output as well. Useful for viewing code documented with POD blocks with the POD rendered and the code left intact."
},
{
"flag": "-c",
"long": "--color",
"arg": null,
"description": "Format the output with ANSI color escape sequences. Using this option requires that Term::ANSIColor be installed on your system. --errors=style Set the error handling style. \"die\" says to throw an exception on any POD formatting error. \"stderr\" says to report errors on standard error, but not to throw an exception. \"pod\" says to include a POD ERRORS section in the resulting documentation summarizing the errors. \"none\" ignores POD errors entirely, as much as possible. The default is \"die\". -i indent, --indent=indent Set the number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default indentation for \"=over\" blocks. Defaults to 4 spaces if this option isn't given."
},
{
"flag": "-h",
"long": "--help",
"arg": null,
"description": "Print out usage information and exit."
},
{
"flag": "-l",
"long": "--loose",
"arg": null,
"description": "Print a blank line after a \"=head1\" heading. Normally, no blank line is printed after \"=head1\", although one is still printed after \"=head2\", because this is the expected formatting for manual pages; if you're formatting arbitrary text documents, using this option is recommended. -m width, --left-margin=width, --margin=width The width of the left margin in spaces. Defaults to 0. This is the margin for all text, including headings, not the amount by which regular text is indented; for the latter, see -i option."
},
{
"flag": "",
"long": "--nourls",
"arg": null,
"description": "Normally, L<> formatting codes with a URL but anchor text are formatted to show both the anchor text and the URL. In other words: L is formatted as: foo This flag, if given, suppresses the URL when anchor text is given, so this example would be formatted as just \"foo\". This can produce less cluttered output in cases where the URLs are not particularly important."
},
{
"flag": "-o",
"long": "--overstrike",
"arg": null,
"description": "Format the output with overstrike printing. Bold text is rendered as character, backspace, character. Italics and file names are rendered as underscore, backspace, character. Many pagers, such as less, know how to convert this to bold or underlined text. -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. Otherwise, it is split in half, and the first half of the string is used as the left quote and the second is used 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."
},
{
"flag": "-s",
"long": "--sentence",
"arg": null,
"description": "Assume each sentence ends with two spaces and try to preserve that spacing. Without this option, all consecutive whitespace in non- verbatim paragraphs is compressed into a single space."
},
{
"flag": "",
"long": "--stderr",
"arg": null,
"description": "By default, pod2text dies if any errors are detected in the POD input. If --stderr is given and no --errors flag is present, errors are sent to standard error, but pod2text does not abort. This is equivalent to \"--errors=stderr\" and is supported for backward compatibility."
},
{
"flag": "-t",
"long": "--termcap",
"arg": null,
"description": "Try to determine the width of the screen and the bold and underline sequences for the terminal from termcap, and use that information in formatting the output. Output will be wrapped at two columns less than the width of your terminal device. Using this option requires that your system have a termcap file somewhere where Term::Cap can find it and requires that your system support termios. With this option, the output of pod2text will contain terminal control sequences for your current terminal type."
},
{
"flag": "-u",
"long": "--utf8",
"arg": null,
"description": "By default, pod2text tries to use the same output encoding as its input encoding (to be backward-compatible with older versions). This option says to instead force the output encoding to UTF-8. Be aware that, when using this option, the input encoding of your POD source should be properly declared unless it's US-ASCII. Pod::Simple will attempt to guess the encoding and may be successful if it's Latin-1 or UTF-8, but it will warn, which by default results in a pod2text failure. Use the \"=encoding\" command to declare the encoding. See perlpod(1) for more information. -w, --width=width, -width The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side. Defaults to 76, unless -t is given, in which case it's two columns less than the width of your terminal device."
}
],
"examples": [],
"see_also": [
{
"name": "perlpod",
"section": "1",
"url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/perlpod/1/json"
}
],
"section_outline": [
{
"name": "NAME",
"lines": 2,
"subsections": []
},
{
"name": "SYNOPSIS",
"lines": 6,
"subsections": []
},
{
"name": "DESCRIPTION",
"lines": 13,
"subsections": []
},
{
"name": "OPTIONS",
"lines": 1,
"subsections": [
{
"name": "-a, --alt",
"lines": 4,
"flag": "-a",
"long": "--alt"
},
{
"name": "--code",
"lines": 4,
"long": "--code"
},
{
"name": "-c, --color",
"lines": 18,
"flag": "-c",
"long": "--color"
},
{
"name": "-h, --help",
"lines": 2,
"flag": "-h",
"long": "--help"
},
{
"name": "-l, --loose",
"lines": 11,
"flag": "-l",
"long": "--loose"
},
{
"name": "--nourls",
"lines": 15,
"long": "--nourls"
},
{
"name": "-o, --overstrike",
"lines": 15,
"flag": "-o",
"long": "--overstrike"
},
{
"name": "-s, --sentence",
"lines": 4,
"flag": "-s",
"long": "--sentence"
},
{
"name": "--stderr",
"lines": 6,
"long": "--stderr"
},
{
"name": "-t, --termcap",
"lines": 9,
"flag": "-t",
"long": "--termcap"
},
{
"name": "-u, --utf8",
"lines": 16,
"flag": "-u",
"long": "--utf8"
}
]
},
{
"name": "EXIT STATUS",
"lines": 8,
"subsections": []
},
{
"name": "DIAGNOSTICS",
"lines": 14,
"subsections": []
},
{
"name": "ENVIRONMENT",
"lines": 10,
"subsections": []
},
{
"name": "AUTHOR",
"lines": 2,
"subsections": []
},
{
"name": "COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE",
"lines": 6,
"subsections": []
},
{
"name": "SEE ALSO",
"lines": 8,
"subsections": []
}
],
"sections": {
"NAME": {
"content": "pod2text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text\n",
"subsections": []
},
"SYNOPSIS": {
"content": "pod2text [-aclostu] [--code] [--errors=style] [-i indent]\n[-qquotes] [--nourls] [--stderr] [-wwidth]\n[input [output ...]]\n\npod2text -h\n",
"subsections": []
},
"DESCRIPTION": {
"content": "pod2text is a front-end for Pod::Text and its subclasses. It uses them\nto generate formatted ASCII text from POD source. It can optionally\nuse either termcap sequences or ANSI color escape sequences to format\nthe text.\n\ninput is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be embedded in\ncode). If input isn't given, it defaults to \"STDIN\". output, if\ngiven, is the file to which to write the formatted output. If output\nisn't given, the formatted output is written to \"STDOUT\". Several POD\nfiles can be processed in the same pod2text invocation (saving module\nload and compile times) by providing multiple pairs of input and output\nfiles on the command line.\n",
"subsections": []
},
"OPTIONS": {
"content": "",
"subsections": [
{
"name": "-a, --alt",
"content": "Use an alternate output format that, among other things, uses a\ndifferent heading style and marks \"=item\" entries with a colon in\nthe left margin.\n",
"flag": "-a",
"long": "--alt"
},
{
"name": "--code",
"content": "Include any non-POD text from the input file in the output as well.\nUseful for viewing code documented with POD blocks with the POD\nrendered and the code left intact.\n",
"long": "--code"
},
{
"name": "-c, --color",
"content": "Format the output with ANSI color escape sequences. Using this\noption requires that Term::ANSIColor be installed on your system.\n\n--errors=style\nSet the error handling style. \"die\" says to throw an exception on\nany POD formatting error. \"stderr\" says to report errors on\nstandard error, but not to throw an exception. \"pod\" says to\ninclude a POD ERRORS section in the resulting documentation\nsummarizing the errors. \"none\" ignores POD errors entirely, as\nmuch as possible.\n\nThe default is \"die\".\n\n-i indent, --indent=indent\nSet the number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default\nindentation for \"=over\" blocks. Defaults to 4 spaces if this\noption isn't given.\n",
"flag": "-c",
"long": "--color"
},
{
"name": "-h, --help",
"content": "Print out usage information and exit.\n",
"flag": "-h",
"long": "--help"
},
{
"name": "-l, --loose",
"content": "Print a blank line after a \"=head1\" heading. Normally, no blank\nline is printed after \"=head1\", although one is still printed after\n\"=head2\", because this is the expected formatting for manual pages;\nif you're formatting arbitrary text documents, using this option is\nrecommended.\n\n-m width, --left-margin=width, --margin=width\nThe width of the left margin in spaces. Defaults to 0. This is\nthe margin for all text, including headings, not the amount by\nwhich regular text is indented; for the latter, see -i option.\n",
"flag": "-l",
"long": "--loose"
},
{
"name": "--nourls",
"content": "Normally, L<> formatting codes with a URL but anchor text are\nformatted to show both the anchor text and the URL. In other\nwords:\n\nL\n\nis formatted as:\n\nfoo \n\nThis flag, if given, suppresses the URL when anchor text is given,\nso this example would be formatted as just \"foo\". This can produce\nless cluttered output in cases where the URLs are not particularly\nimportant.\n",
"long": "--nourls"
},
{
"name": "-o, --overstrike",
"content": "Format the output with overstrike printing. Bold text is rendered\nas character, backspace, character. Italics and file names are\nrendered as underscore, backspace, character. Many pagers, such as\nless, know how to convert this to bold or underlined text.\n\n-q quotes, --quotes=quotes\nSets the quote marks used to surround C<> text to quotes. If\nquotes is a single character, it is used as both the left and right\nquote. Otherwise, it is split in half, and the first half of the\nstring is used as the left quote and the second is used as the\nright quote.\n\nquotes may also be set to the special value \"none\", in which case\nno quote marks are added around C<> text.\n",
"flag": "-o",
"long": "--overstrike"
},
{
"name": "-s, --sentence",
"content": "Assume each sentence ends with two spaces and try to preserve that\nspacing. Without this option, all consecutive whitespace in non-\nverbatim paragraphs is compressed into a single space.\n",
"flag": "-s",
"long": "--sentence"
},
{
"name": "--stderr",
"content": "By default, pod2text dies if any errors are detected in the POD\ninput. If --stderr is given and no --errors flag is present,\nerrors are sent to standard error, but pod2text does not abort.\nThis is equivalent to \"--errors=stderr\" and is supported for\nbackward compatibility.\n",
"long": "--stderr"
},
{
"name": "-t, --termcap",
"content": "Try to determine the width of the screen and the bold and underline\nsequences for the terminal from termcap, and use that information\nin formatting the output. Output will be wrapped at two columns\nless than the width of your terminal device. Using this option\nrequires that your system have a termcap file somewhere where\nTerm::Cap can find it and requires that your system support\ntermios. With this option, the output of pod2text will contain\nterminal control sequences for your current terminal type.\n",
"flag": "-t",
"long": "--termcap"
},
{
"name": "-u, --utf8",
"content": "By default, pod2text tries to use the same output encoding as its\ninput encoding (to be backward-compatible with older versions).\nThis option says to instead force the output encoding to UTF-8.\n\nBe aware that, when using this option, the input encoding of your\nPOD source should be properly declared unless it's US-ASCII.\nPod::Simple will attempt to guess the encoding and may be\nsuccessful if it's Latin-1 or UTF-8, but it will warn, which by\ndefault results in a pod2text failure. Use the \"=encoding\" command\nto declare the encoding. See perlpod(1) for more information.\n\n-w, --width=width, -width\nThe column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side. Defaults\nto 76, unless -t is given, in which case it's two columns less than\nthe width of your terminal device.\n",
"flag": "-u",
"long": "--utf8"
}
]
},
"EXIT STATUS": {
"content": "As long as all documents processed result in some output, even if that\noutput includes errata (a \"POD ERRORS\" section generated with\n\"--errors=pod\"), pod2text will exit with status 0. If any of the\ndocuments being processed do not result in an output document, pod2text\nwill exit with status 1. If there are syntax errors in a POD document\nbeing processed and the error handling style is set to the default of\n\"die\", pod2text will abort immediately with exit status 255.\n",
"subsections": []
},
"DIAGNOSTICS": {
"content": "If pod2text fails with errors, see Pod::Text and Pod::Simple for\ninformation about what those errors might mean. Internally, it can\nalso produce the following diagnostics:\n\n-c (--color) requires Term::ANSIColor be installed\n(F) -c or --color were given, but Term::ANSIColor could not be\nloaded.\n\nUnknown option: %s\n(F) An unknown command line option was given.\n\nIn addition, other Getopt::Long error messages may result from invalid\ncommand-line options.\n",
"subsections": []
},
"ENVIRONMENT": {
"content": "COLUMNS\nIf -t is given, pod2text will take the current width of your screen\nfrom this environment variable, if available. It overrides\nterminal width information in TERMCAP.\n\nTERMCAP\nIf -t is given, pod2text will use the contents of this environment\nvariable if available to determine the correct formatting sequences\nfor your current terminal device.\n",
"subsections": []
},
"AUTHOR": {
"content": "Russ Allbery .\n",
"subsections": []
},
"COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE": {
"content": "Copyright 1999-2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012-2019 Russ Allbery\n\n\nThis program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it\nunder the same terms as Perl itself.\n",
"subsections": []
},
"SEE ALSO": {
"content": "Pod::Text, Pod::Text::Color, Pod::Text::Overstrike, Pod::Text::Termcap,\nPod::Simple, perlpod(1)\n\nThe current version of this script is always available from its web\nsite at . It is also\npart of the Perl core distribution as of 5.6.0.\n\nperl v5.34.0 2026-06-23 POD2TEXT(1)",
"subsections": []
}
}
}
}