{
    "mode": "man",
    "parameter": "PERLPOD",
    "section": "1",
    "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PERLPOD/1/json",
    "generated": "2026-06-15T14:37:46Z",
    "sections": {
        "NAME": {
            "content": "perlpod - the Plain Old Documentation format\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DESCRIPTION": {
            "content": "Pod is a simple-to-use markup language used for writing documentation for Perl, Perl\nprograms, and Perl modules.\n\nTranslators are available for converting Pod to various formats like plain text, HTML, man\npages, and more.\n\nPod markup consists of three basic kinds of paragraphs: ordinary, verbatim, and command.\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "Ordinary Paragraph",
                    "content": "Most paragraphs in your documentation will be ordinary blocks of text, like this one.  You\ncan simply type in your text without any markup whatsoever, and with just a blank line before\nand after.  When it gets formatted, it will undergo minimal formatting, like being rewrapped,\nprobably put into a proportionally spaced font, and maybe even justified.\n\nYou can use formatting codes in ordinary paragraphs, for bold, italic, \"code-style\",\nhyperlinks, and more.  Such codes are explained in the \"Formatting Codes\" section, below.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Verbatim Paragraph",
                    "content": "Verbatim paragraphs are usually used for presenting a codeblock or other text which does not\nrequire any special parsing or formatting, and which shouldn't be wrapped.\n\nA verbatim paragraph is distinguished by having its first character be a space or a tab.\n(And commonly, all its lines begin with spaces and/or tabs.)  It should be reproduced\nexactly, with tabs assumed to be on 8-column boundaries.  There are no special formatting\ncodes, so you can't italicize or anything like that.  A \\ means \\, and nothing else.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Command Paragraph",
                    "content": "A command paragraph is used for special treatment of whole chunks of text, usually as\nheadings or parts of lists.\n\nAll command paragraphs (which are typically only one line long) start with \"=\", followed by\nan identifier, followed by arbitrary text that the command can use however it pleases.\nCurrently recognized commands are\n\n=pod\n=head1 Heading Text\n=head2 Heading Text\n=head3 Heading Text\n=head4 Heading Text\n=over indentlevel\n=item stuff\n=back\n=begin format\n=end format\n=for format text...\n=encoding type\n=cut\n\nTo explain them each in detail:\n\n\"=head1 Heading Text\"\n\"=head2 Heading Text\"\n\"=head3 Heading Text\"\n\"=head4 Heading Text\"\nHead1 through head4 produce headings, head1 being the highest level.  The text in the\nrest of this paragraph is the content of the heading.  For example:\n\n=head2 Object Attributes\n\nThe text \"Object Attributes\" comprises the heading there.  The text in these heading\ncommands can use formatting codes, as seen here:\n\n=head2 Possible Values for C<$/>\n\nSuch commands are explained in the \"Formatting Codes\" section, below.\n\n\"=over indentlevel\"\n\"=item stuff...\"\n\"=back\"\nItem, over, and back require a little more explanation:  \"=over\" starts a region\nspecifically for the generation of a list using \"=item\" commands, or for indenting\n(groups of) normal paragraphs.  At the end of your list, use \"=back\" to end it.  The\nindentlevel option to \"=over\" indicates how far over to indent, generally in ems (where\none em is the width of an \"M\" in the document's base font) or roughly comparable units;\nif there is no indentlevel option, it defaults to four.  (And some formatters may just\nignore whatever indentlevel you provide.)  In the stuff in \"=item stuff...\", you may use\nformatting codes, as seen here:\n\n=item Using C<$|> to Control Buffering\n\nSuch commands are explained in the \"Formatting Codes\" section, below.\n\nNote also that there are some basic rules to using \"=over\" ...  \"=back\" regions:\n\n•   Don't use \"=item\"s outside of an \"=over\" ... \"=back\" region.\n\n•   The first thing after the \"=over\" command should be an \"=item\", unless there aren't\ngoing to be any items at all in this \"=over\" ... \"=back\" region.\n\n•   Don't put \"=headn\" commands inside an \"=over\" ... \"=back\" region.\n\n•   And perhaps most importantly, keep the items consistent: either use \"=item *\" for all\nof them, to produce bullets; or use \"=item 1.\", \"=item 2.\", etc., to produce numbered\nlists; or use \"=item foo\", \"=item bar\", etc.--namely, things that look nothing like\nbullets or numbers.  (If you have a list that contains both: 1) things that don't\nlook like bullets nor numbers,  plus 2) things that do, you should preface the\nbullet- or number-like items with \"Z<>\".  See Z<> below for an example.)\n\nIf you start with bullets or numbers, stick with them, as formatters use the first\n\"=item\" type to decide how to format the list.\n\n\"=cut\"\nTo end a Pod block, use a blank line, then a line beginning with \"=cut\", and a blank line\nafter it.  This lets Perl (and the Pod formatter) know that this is where Perl code is\nresuming.  (The blank line before the \"=cut\" is not technically necessary, but many older\nPod processors require it.)\n\n\"=pod\"\nThe \"=pod\" command by itself doesn't do much of anything, but it signals to Perl (and Pod\nformatters) that a Pod block starts here.  A Pod block starts with any command paragraph,\nso a \"=pod\" command is usually used just when you want to start a Pod block with an\nordinary paragraph or a verbatim paragraph.  For example:\n\n=item stuff()\n\nThis function does stuff.\n\n=cut\n\nsub stuff {\n...\n}\n\n=pod\n\nRemember to check its return value, as in:\n\nstuff() || die \"Couldn't do stuff!\";\n\n=cut\n\n\"=begin formatname\"\n\"=end formatname\"\n\"=for formatname text...\"\nFor, begin, and end will let you have regions of text/code/data that are not generally\ninterpreted as normal Pod text, but are passed directly to particular formatters, or are\notherwise special.  A formatter that can use that format will use the region, otherwise\nit will be completely ignored.\n\nA command \"=begin formatname\", some paragraphs, and a command \"=end formatname\", mean\nthat the text/data in between is meant for formatters that understand the special format\ncalled formatname.  For example,\n\n=begin html\n\n<hr> <img src=\"thang.png\">\n<p> This is a raw HTML paragraph </p>\n\n=end html\n\nThe command \"=for formatname text...\"  specifies that the remainder of just this\nparagraph (starting right after formatname) is in that special format.\n\n=for html <hr> <img src=\"thang.png\">\n<p> This is a raw HTML paragraph </p>\n\nThis means the same thing as the above \"=begin html\" ... \"=end html\" region.\n\nThat is, with \"=for\", you can have only one paragraph's worth of text (i.e., the text in\n\"=foo targetname text...\"), but with \"=begin targetname\" ... \"=end targetname\", you can\nhave any amount of stuff in between.  (Note that there still must be a blank line after\nthe \"=begin\" command and a blank line before the \"=end\" command.)\n\nHere are some examples of how to use these:\n\n=begin html\n\n<br>Figure 1.<br><IMG SRC=\"figure1.png\"><br>\n\n=end html\n\n=begin text\n\n---------------\n|  foo        |\n|        bar  |\n---------------\n\n^^^^ Figure 1. ^^^^\n\n=end text\n\nSome format names that formatters currently are known to accept include \"roff\", \"man\",\n\"latex\", \"tex\", \"text\", and \"html\".  (Some formatters will treat some of these as\nsynonyms.)\n\nA format name of \"comment\" is common for just making notes (presumably to yourself) that\nwon't appear in any formatted version of the Pod document:\n\n=for comment\nMake sure that all the available options are documented!\n\nSome formatnames will require a leading colon (as in \"=for :formatname\", or \"=begin\n:formatname\" ... \"=end :formatname\"), to signal that the text is not raw data, but\ninstead is Pod text (i.e., possibly containing formatting codes) that's just not for\nnormal formatting (e.g., may not be a normal-use paragraph, but might be for formatting\nas a footnote).\n\n\"=encoding encodingname\"\nThis command is used for declaring the encoding of a document.  Most users won't need\nthis; but if your encoding isn't US-ASCII, then put a \"=encoding encodingname\" command\nvery early in the document so that pod formatters will know how to decode the document.\nFor encodingname, use a name recognized by the Encode::Supported module.  Some pod\nformatters may try to guess between a Latin-1 or CP-1252 versus UTF-8 encoding, but they\nmay guess wrong.  It's best to be explicit if you use anything besides strict ASCII.\nExamples:\n\n=encoding latin1\n\n=encoding utf8\n\n=encoding koi8-r\n\n=encoding ShiftJIS\n\n=encoding big5\n\n\"=encoding\" affects the whole document, and must occur only once.\n\nAnd don't forget, all commands but \"=encoding\" last up until the end of its paragraph, not\nits line.  So in the examples below, you can see that every command needs the blank line\nafter it, to end its paragraph.  (And some older Pod translators may require the \"=encoding\"\nline to have a following blank line as well, even though it should be legal to omit.)\n\nSome examples of lists include:\n\n=over\n\n=item *\n\nFirst item\n\n=item *\n\nSecond item\n\n=back\n\n=over\n\n=item Foo()\n\nDescription of Foo function\n\n=item Bar()\n\nDescription of Bar function\n\n=back\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Formatting Codes",
                    "content": "In ordinary paragraphs and in some command paragraphs, various formatting codes (a.k.a.\n\"interior sequences\") can be used:\n\n\"I<text>\" -- italic text\nUsed for emphasis (\"\"be I<careful!>\"\") and parameters (\"\"redo I<LABEL>\"\")\n\n\"B<text>\" -- bold text\nUsed for switches (\"\"perl's B<-n> switch\"\"), programs (\"\"some systems provide a B<chfn>\nfor that\"\"), emphasis (\"\"be B<careful!>\"\"), and so on (\"\"and that feature is known as\nB<autovivification>\"\").\n\n\"C<code>\" -- code text\nRenders code in a typewriter font, or gives some other indication that this represents\nprogram text (\"\"C<gmtime($^T)>\"\") or some other form of computerese (\"\"C<drwxr-xr-x>\"\").\n\n\"L<name>\" -- a hyperlink\nThere are various syntaxes, listed below.  In the syntaxes given, \"text\", \"name\", and\n\"section\" cannot contain the characters '/' and '|'; and any '<' or '>' should be\nmatched.\n\n•   \"L<name>\"\n\nLink to a Perl manual page (e.g., \"L<Net::Ping>\").  Note that \"name\" should not\ncontain spaces.  This syntax is also occasionally used for references to Unix man\npages, as in \"L<crontab(5)>\".\n\n•   \"L<name/\"sec\">\" or \"L<name/sec>\"\n\nLink to a section in other manual page.  E.g., \"L<perlsyn/\"For Loops\">\"\n\n•   \"L</\"sec\">\" or \"L</sec>\"\n\nLink to a section in this manual page.  E.g., \"L</\"Object Methods\">\"\n\nA section is started by the named heading or item.  For example, \"L<perlvar/$.>\" or\n\"L<perlvar/\"$.\">\" both link to the section started by \"\"=item $.\"\" in perlvar.  And\n\"L<perlsyn/For Loops>\" or \"L<perlsyn/\"For Loops\">\" both link to the section started by\n\"\"=head2 For Loops\"\" in perlsyn.\n\nTo control what text is used for display, you use \"\"L<text|...>\"\", as in:\n\n•   \"L<text|name>\"\n\nLink this text to that manual page.  E.g., \"L<Perl Error Messages|perldiag>\"\n\n•   \"L<text|name/\"sec\">\" or \"L<text|name/sec>\"\n\nLink this text to that section in that manual page.  E.g., \"L<postfix\n\"if\"|perlsyn/\"Statement Modifiers\">\"\n\n•   \"L<text|/\"sec\">\" or \"L<text|/sec>\" or \"L<text|\"sec\">\"\n\nLink this text to that section in this manual page.  E.g., \"L<the various\nattributes|/\"Member Data\">\"\n\nOr you can link to a web page:\n\n•   \"L<scheme:...>\"\n\n\"L<text|scheme:...>\"\n\nLinks to an absolute URL.  For example, \"L<http://www.perl.org/>\" or \"L<The Perl Home\nPage|http://www.perl.org/>\".\n\n\"E<escape>\" -- a character escape\nVery similar to HTML/XML \"&foo;\" \"entity references\":\n\n•   \"E<lt>\" -- a literal < (less than)\n\n•   \"E<gt>\" -- a literal > (greater than)\n\n•   \"E<verbar>\" -- a literal | (vertical bar)\n\n•   \"E<sol>\" -- a literal / (solidus)\n\nThe above four are optional except in other formatting codes, notably \"L<...>\", and\nwhen preceded by a capital letter.\n\n•   \"E<htmlname>\"\n\nSome non-numeric HTML entity name, such as \"E<eacute>\", meaning the same thing as\n\"&eacute;\" in HTML -- i.e., a lowercase e with an acute (/-shaped) accent.\n\n•   \"E<number>\"\n\nThe ASCII/Latin-1/Unicode character with that number.  A leading \"0x\" means that\nnumber is hex, as in \"E<0x201E>\".  A leading \"0\" means that number is octal, as in\n\"E<075>\".  Otherwise number is interpreted as being in decimal, as in \"E<181>\".\n\nNote that older Pod formatters might not recognize octal or hex numeric escapes, and\nthat many formatters cannot reliably render characters above 255.  (Some formatters\nmay even have to use compromised renderings of Latin-1/CP-1252 characters, like\nrendering \"E<eacute>\" as just a plain \"e\".)\n\n\"F<filename>\" -- used for filenames\nTypically displayed in italics.  Example: \"\"F<.cshrc>\"\"\n\n\"S<text>\" -- text contains non-breaking spaces\nThis means that the words in text should not be broken across lines.  Example:\n\"S<$x ? $y : $z>\".\n\n\"X<topic name>\" -- an index entry\nThis is ignored by most formatters, but some may use it for building indexes.  It always\nrenders as empty-string.  Example: \"X<absolutizing relative URLs>\"\n\n\"Z<>\" -- a null (zero-effect) formatting code\nThis is rarely used.  It's one way to get around using an E<...> code sometimes.  For\nexample, instead of \"\"NE<lt>3\"\" (for \"N<3\") you could write \"\"NZ<><3\"\" (the \"Z<>\" breaks\nup the \"N\" and the \"<\" so they can't be considered the part of a (fictitious) \"N<...>\"\ncode).\n\nAnother use is to indicate that stuff in \"=item Z<>stuff...\"  is not to be considered to\nbe a bullet or number.  For example, without the \"Z<>\", the line\n\n=item Z<>500 Server error\n\ncould possibly be parsed as an item in a numbered list when it isn't meant to be.\n\nStill another use is to maintain visual space between \"=item\" lines.  If you specify\n\n=item foo\n\n=item bar\n\nit will typically get rendered as\n\nfoo\nbar\n\nThat may be what you want, but if what you really want is\n\nfoo\n\nbar\n\nyou can use \"Z<>\" to accomplish that\n\n=item foo\n\nZ<>\n\n=item bar\n\nMost of the time, you will need only a single set of angle brackets to delimit the beginning\nand end of formatting codes.  However, sometimes you will want to put a real right angle\nbracket (a greater-than sign, '>') inside of a formatting code.  This is particularly common\nwhen using a formatting code to provide a different font-type for a snippet of code.  As with\nall things in Perl, there is more than one way to do it.  One way is to simply escape the\nclosing bracket using an \"E\" code:\n\nC<$a E<lt>=E<gt> $b>\n\nThis will produce: \"\"$a <=> $b\"\"\n\nA more readable, and perhaps more \"plain\" way is to use an alternate set of delimiters that\ndoesn't require a single \">\" to be escaped.  Doubled angle brackets (\"<<\" and \">>\") may be\nused if and only if there is whitespace right after the opening delimiter and whitespace\nright before the closing delimiter!  For example, the following will do the trick:\n\nC<< $a <=> $b >>\n\nIn fact, you can use as many repeated angle-brackets as you like so long as you have the same\nnumber of them in the opening and closing delimiters, and make sure that whitespace\nimmediately follows the last '<' of the opening delimiter, and immediately precedes the first\n'>' of the closing delimiter.  (The whitespace is ignored.)  So the following will also work:\n\nC<<< $a <=> $b >>>\nC<<<<  $a <=> $b     >>>>\n\nAnd they all mean exactly the same as this:\n\nC<$a E<lt>=E<gt> $b>\n\nThe multiple-bracket form does not affect the interpretation of the contents of the\nformatting code, only how it must end.  That means that the examples above are also exactly\nthe same as this:\n\nC<< $a E<lt>=E<gt> $b >>\n\nAs a further example, this means that if you wanted to put these bits of code in \"C\" (code)\nstyle:\n\nopen(X, \">>thing.dat\") || die $!\n$foo->bar();\n\nyou could do it like so:\n\nC<<< open(X, \">>thing.dat\") || die $! >>>\nC<< $foo->bar(); >>\n\nwhich is presumably easier to read than the old way:\n\nC<open(X, \"E<gt>E<gt>thing.dat\") || die $!>\nC<$foo-E<gt>bar();>\n\nThis is currently supported by pod2text (Pod::Text), pod2man (Pod::Man), and any other\npod2xxx or Pod::Xxxx translators that use Pod::Parser 1.093 or later, or Pod::Tree 1.02 or\nlater.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "The Intent",
                    "content": "The intent is simplicity of use, not power of expression.  Paragraphs look like paragraphs\n(block format), so that they stand out visually, and so that I could run them through \"fmt\"\neasily to reformat them (that's F7 in my version of vi, or Esc Q in my version of emacs).  I\nwanted the translator to always leave the \"'\" and \"`\" and \"\"\" quotes alone, in verbatim mode,\nso I could slurp in a working program, shift it over four spaces, and have it print out, er,\nverbatim.  And presumably in a monospace font.\n\nThe Pod format is not necessarily sufficient for writing a book.  Pod is just meant to be an\nidiot-proof common source for nroff, HTML, TeX, and other markup languages, as used for\nonline documentation.  Translators exist for pod2text, pod2html, pod2man (that's for nroff(1)\nand troff(1)), pod2latex, and pod2fm.  Various others are available in CPAN.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Embedding Pods in Perl Modules",
                    "content": "You can embed Pod documentation in your Perl modules and scripts.  Start your documentation\nwith an empty line, a \"=head1\" command at the beginning, and end it with a \"=cut\" command and\nan empty line.  The perl executable will ignore the Pod text.  You can place a Pod statement\nwhere perl expects the beginning of a new statement, but not within a statement, as that\nwould result in an error.  See any of the supplied library modules for examples.\n\nIf you're going to put your Pod at the end of the file, and you're using an \"END\" or\n\"DATA\" cut mark, make sure to put an empty line there before the first Pod command.\n\nEND\n\n=head1 NAME\n\nTime::Local - efficiently compute time from local and GMT time\n\nWithout that empty line before the \"=head1\", many translators wouldn't have recognized the\n\"=head1\" as starting a Pod block.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Hints for Writing Pod",
                    "content": "•\n\n\nThe podchecker command is provided for checking Pod syntax for errors and warnings.  For\nexample, it checks for completely blank lines in Pod blocks and for unknown commands and\nformatting codes.  You should still also pass your document through one or more\ntranslators and proofread the result, or print out the result and proofread that.  Some\nof the problems found may be bugs in the translators, which you may or may not wish to\nwork around.\n\n•   If you're more familiar with writing in HTML than with writing in Pod, you can try your\nhand at writing documentation in simple HTML, and converting it to Pod with the\nexperimental Pod::HTML2Pod module, (available in CPAN), and looking at the resulting\ncode.  The experimental Pod::PXML module in CPAN might also be useful.\n\n•   Many older Pod translators require the lines before every Pod command and after every Pod\ncommand (including \"=cut\"!) to be a blank line.  Having something like this:\n\n# - - - - - - - - - - - -\n=item $firecracker->boom()\n\nThis noisily detonates the firecracker object.\n=cut\nsub boom {\n...\n\n...will make such Pod translators completely fail to see the Pod block at all.\n\nInstead, have it like this:\n\n# - - - - - - - - - - - -\n\n=item $firecracker->boom()\n\nThis noisily detonates the firecracker object.\n\n=cut\n\nsub boom {\n...\n\n•   Some older Pod translators require paragraphs (including command paragraphs like \"=head2\nFunctions\") to be separated by completely empty lines.  If you have an apparently empty\nline with some spaces on it, this might not count as a separator for those translators,\nand that could cause odd formatting.\n\n•   Older translators might add wording around an L<> link, so that \"L<Foo::Bar>\" may become\n\"the Foo::Bar manpage\", for example.  So you shouldn't write things like \"the L<foo>\ndocumentation\", if you want the translated document to read sensibly.  Instead, write\n\"the L<Foo::Bar|Foo::Bar> documentation\" or \"L<the Foo::Bar documentation|Foo::Bar>\", to\ncontrol how the link comes out.\n\n•   Going past the 70th column in a verbatim block might be ungracefully wrapped by some\nformatters.\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "SEE ALSO": {
            "content": "perlpodspec, \"PODs: Embedded Documentation\" in perlsyn, perlnewmod, perldoc, pod2html,\npod2man, podchecker.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "AUTHOR": {
            "content": "Larry Wall, Sean M. Burke\n\n\n\nperl v5.34.0                                 2025-07-25                                   PERLPOD(1)",
            "subsections": []
        }
    },
    "summary": "perlpod - the Plain Old Documentation format",
    "flags": [],
    "examples": [],
    "see_also": []
}