man > perlpod(1)

PERLPOD(1)                        Perl Programmers Reference Guide                        PERLPOD(1)

NAME
       perlpod - the Plain Old Documentation format

DESCRIPTION
       Pod is a simple-to-use markup language used for writing documentation for Perl, Perl
       programs, and Perl modules.

       Translators are available for converting Pod to various formats like plain text, HTML, man
       pages, and more.

       Pod markup consists of three basic kinds of paragraphs: ordinary, verbatim, and command.

   Ordinary Paragraph
       Most paragraphs in your documentation will be ordinary blocks of text, like this one.  You
       can simply type in your text without any markup whatsoever, and with just a blank line before
       and after.  When it gets formatted, it will undergo minimal formatting, like being rewrapped,
       probably put into a proportionally spaced font, and maybe even justified.

       You can use formatting codes in ordinary paragraphs, for bold, italic, "code-style",
       hyperlinks, and more.  Such codes are explained in the "Formatting Codes" section, below.

   Verbatim Paragraph
       Verbatim paragraphs are usually used for presenting a codeblock or other text which does not
       require any special parsing or formatting, and which shouldn't be wrapped.

       A verbatim paragraph is distinguished by having its first character be a space or a tab.
       (And commonly, all its lines begin with spaces and/or tabs.)  It should be reproduced
       exactly, with tabs assumed to be on 8-column boundaries.  There are no special formatting
       codes, so you can't italicize or anything like that.  A \ means \, and nothing else.

   Command Paragraph
       A command paragraph is used for special treatment of whole chunks of text, usually as
       headings or parts of lists.

       All command paragraphs (which are typically only one line long) start with "=", followed by
       an identifier, followed by arbitrary text that the command can use however it pleases.
       Currently recognized commands are

           =pod
           =head1 Heading Text
           =head2 Heading Text
           =head3 Heading Text
           =head4 Heading Text
           =head5 Heading Text
           =head6 Heading Text
           =over indentlevel
           =item stuff
           =back
           =begin format
           =end format
           =for format text...
           =encoding type
           =cut

       To explain them each in detail:

       "=head1 Heading Text"
       "=head2 Heading Text"
       "=head3 Heading Text"
       "=head4 Heading Text"
       "=head5 Heading Text"
       "=head6 Heading Text"
           Head1  through  head6  produce  headings, head1 being the highest level.  The text in the
           rest of this paragraph is the content of the heading.  For example:

             =head2 Object Attributes

           The text "Object Attributes" comprises the heading there.   The  text  in  these  heading
           commands can use formatting codes, as seen here:

             =head2 Possible Values for C<$/>

           Such commands are explained in the "Formatting Codes" section, below.

           Note  that  "head5" and "head6" were introduced in 2020 and in Pod::Simple 3.41, released
           in October 2020, so they might not be supported on the Pod parser you use.

       "=over indentlevel"
       "=item stuff..."
       "=back"
           Item, over, and back  require  a  little  more  explanation:   "=over"  starts  a  region
           specifically  for  the  generation  of  a  list  using "=item" commands, or for indenting
           (groups of) normal paragraphs.  At the end of your list, use  "=back"  to  end  it.   The
           indentlevel  option  to "=over" indicates how far over to indent, generally in ems (where
           one em is the width of an "M" in the document's base font) or roughly  comparable  units;
           if  there  is  no indentlevel option, it defaults to four.  (And some formatters may just
           ignore whatever indentlevel you provide.)  In the stuff in "=item stuff...", you may  use
           formatting codes, as seen here:

             =item Using C<$|> to Control Buffering

           Such commands are explained in the "Formatting Codes" section, below.

           Note also that there are some basic rules to using "=over" ...  "=back" regions:

           •   Don't use "=item"s outside of an "=over" ... "=back" region.

           •   The  first  thing after the "=over" command should be an "=item", unless there aren't
               going to be any items at all in this "=over" ... "=back" region.

           •   Don't put "=headn" commands inside an "=over" ... "=back" region.

           •   And perhaps most importantly, keep the items consistent: either use "=item *" for all
               of them, to produce bullets; or use "=item 1.", "=item 2.", etc., to produce numbered
               lists; or use "=item foo", "=item bar", etc.--namely, things that look  nothing  like
               bullets  or  numbers.   (If  you have a list that contains both: 1) things that don't
               look like bullets nor numbers,  plus 2)  things  that  do,  you  should  preface  the
               bullet- or number-like items with "Z<>".  See Z<> below for an example.)

               If  you  start  with bullets or numbers, stick with them, as formatters use the first
               "=item" type to decide how to format the list.

       "=cut"
           To end a Pod block, use a blank line, then a line beginning with "=cut", and a blank line
           after it.  This lets Perl (and the Pod formatter) know that this is where  Perl  code  is
           resuming.  (The blank line before the "=cut" is not technically necessary, but many older
           Pod processors require it.)

       "=pod"
           The "=pod" command by itself doesn't do much of anything, but it signals to Perl (and Pod
           formatters) that a Pod block starts here.  A Pod block starts with any command paragraph,
           so  a  "=pod"  command  is  usually  used just when you want to start a Pod block with an
           ordinary paragraph or a verbatim paragraph.  For example:

             =item stuff()

             This function does stuff.

             =cut

             sub stuff {
               ...
             }

             =pod

             Remember to check its return value, as in:

               stuff() || die "Couldn't do stuff!";

             =cut

       "=begin formatname"
       "=end formatname"
       "=for formatname text..."
           For, begin, and end will let you have regions of text/code/data that  are  not  generally
           interpreted  as normal Pod text, but are passed directly to particular formatters, or are
           otherwise special.  A formatter that can use that format will use the  region,  otherwise
           it will be completely ignored.

           A  command  "=begin  formatname",  some paragraphs, and a command "=end formatname", mean
           that the text/data in between is meant for formatters that understand the special  format
           called formatname.  For example,

             =begin html

             <hr> <img src="thang.png">
             <p> This is a raw HTML paragraph </p>

             =end html

           The  command  "=for  formatname  text..."   specifies  that  the  remainder  of just this
           paragraph (starting right after formatname) is in that special format.

             =for html <hr> <img src="thang.png">
             <p> This is a raw HTML paragraph </p>

           This means the same thing as the above "=begin html" ... "=end html" region.

           That is, with "=for", you can have only one paragraph's worth of text (i.e., the text  in
           "=foo  targetname  text..."), but with "=begin targetname" ... "=end targetname", you can
           have any amount of stuff in between.  (Note that there still must be a blank  line  after
           the "=begin" command and a blank line before the "=end" command.)

           Here are some examples of how to use these:

             =begin html

             <br>Figure 1.<br><IMG SRC="figure1.png"><br>

             =end html

             =begin text

               ---------------
               |  foo        |
               |        bar  |
               ---------------

             ^^^^ Figure 1. ^^^^

             =end text

           Some  format  names  that formatters currently are known to accept include "roff", "man",
           "latex", "tex", "text", and "html".   (Some  formatters  will  treat  some  of  these  as
           synonyms.)

           A  format name of "comment" is common for just making notes (presumably to yourself) that
           won't appear in any formatted version of the Pod document:

             =for comment
             Make sure that all the available options are documented!

           Some formatnames will require a leading colon  (as  in  "=for  :formatname",  or  "=begin
           :formatname"  ...  "=end  :formatname"),  to  signal  that  the text is not raw data, but
           instead is Pod text (i.e., possibly containing formatting  codes)  that's  just  not  for
           normal  formatting  (e.g., may not be a normal-use paragraph, but might be for formatting
           as a footnote).

       "=encoding encodingname"
           This command is used for declaring the encoding of a document.   Most  users  won't  need
           this;  but  if  your encoding isn't US-ASCII, then put a "=encoding encodingname" command
           very early in the document so that pod formatters will know how to decode  the  document.
           For  encodingname,  use  a  name  recognized  by  the Encode::Supported module.  Some pod
           formatters may try to guess between a Latin-1 or CP-1252 versus UTF-8 encoding, but  they
           may  guess  wrong.   It's  best  to be explicit if you use anything besides strict ASCII.
           Examples:

             =encoding latin1

             =encoding utf8

             =encoding koi8-r

             =encoding ShiftJIS

             =encoding big5

           "=encoding" affects the whole document, and must occur only once.

       And don't forget, all commands but "=encoding" last up until the end of  its  paragraph,  not
       its  line.   So  in  the  examples below, you can see that every command needs the blank line
       after it, to end its paragraph.  (And some older Pod translators may require the  "=encoding"
       line to have a following blank line as well, even though it should be legal to omit.)

       Some examples of lists include:

         =over

         =item *

         First item

         =item *

         Second item

         =back

         =over

         =item Foo()

         Description of Foo function

         =item Bar()

         Description of Bar function

         =back

   Formatting Codes
       In  ordinary  paragraphs  and  in  some  command paragraphs, various formatting codes (a.k.a.
       "interior sequences") can be used:

       "I<text>" -- italic text
           Used for emphasis (""be I<careful!>"") and parameters (""redo I<LABEL>"")

       "B<text>" -- bold text
           Used for switches (""perl's B<-n> switch""), programs (""some systems provide  a  B<chfn>
           for  that""),  emphasis  (""be  B<careful!>""), and so on (""and that feature is known as
           B<autovivification>"").

       "C<code>" -- code text
           Renders code in a typewriter font, or gives some other indication  that  this  represents
           program text (""C<gmtime($^T)>"") or some other form of computerese (""C<drwxr-xr-x>"").

       "L<name>" -- a hyperlink
           There  are  various  syntaxes,  listed below.  In the syntaxes given, "text", "name", and
           "section" cannot contain the characters '/' and  '|';  and  any  '<'  or  '>'  should  be
           matched.

           •   "L<name>"

               Link  to  a  Perl  manual  page  (e.g., "L<Net::Ping>").  Note that "name" should not
               contain spaces.  This syntax is also occasionally used for  references  to  Unix  man
               pages, as in "L<crontab(5)>".

           •   "L<name/"sec">" or "L<name/sec>"

               Link to a section in other manual page.  E.g., "L<perlsyn/"For Loops">"

           •   "L</"sec">" or "L</sec>"

               Link to a section in this manual page.  E.g., "L</"Object Methods">"

           A  section  is  started  by  the  named heading or item.  For example, "L<perlvar/$.>" or
           "L<perlvar/"$.">" both link to the section started  by  ""=item  $.""  in  perlvar.   And
           "L<perlsyn/For  Loops>"  or  "L<perlsyn/"For Loops">" both link to the section started by
           ""=head2 For Loops"" in perlsyn.

           To control what text is used for display, you use ""L<text|...>"", as in:

           •   "L<text|name>"

               Link this text to that manual page.  E.g., "L<Perl Error Messages|perldiag>"

           •   "L<text|name/"sec">" or "L<text|name/sec>"

               Link  this  text  to  that  section  in   that   manual   page.    E.g.,   "L<postfix
               "if"|perlsyn/"Statement Modifiers">"

           •   "L<text|/"sec">" or "L<text|/sec>" or "L<text|"sec">"

               Link  this  text  to  that  section  in  this  manual  page.   E.g.,  "L<the  various
               attributes|/"Member Data">"

           Or you can link to a web page:

           •   "L<scheme:...>"

               "L<text|scheme:...>"

               Links to an absolute URL.  For example, "L<http://www.perl.org/>" or "L<The Perl Home
               Page|http://www.perl.org/>".

       "E<escape>" -- a character escape
           Very similar to HTML/XML "&foo;" "entity references":

           •   "E<lt>" -- a literal < (less than)

           •   "E<gt>" -- a literal > (greater than)

           •   "E<verbar>" -- a literal | (vertical bar)

           •   "E<sol>" -- a literal / (solidus)

               The above four are optional except in other formatting codes, notably  "L<...>",  and
               when preceded by a capital letter.

           •   "E<htmlname>"

               Some  non-numeric  HTML  entity  name, such as "E<eacute>", meaning the same thing as
               "&eacute;" in HTML -- i.e., a lowercase e with an acute (/-shaped) accent.

           •   "E<number>"

               The ASCII/Latin-1/Unicode character with that number.   A  leading  "0x"  means  that
               number  is  hex,  as in "E<0x201E>".  A leading "0" means that number is octal, as in
               "E<075>".  Otherwise number is interpreted as being in decimal, as in "E<181>".

               Note that older Pod formatters might not recognize octal or hex numeric escapes,  and
               that  many  formatters cannot reliably render characters above 255.  (Some formatters
               may even have to use  compromised  renderings  of  Latin-1/CP-1252  characters,  like
               rendering "E<eacute>" as just a plain "e".)

       "F<filename>" -- used for filenames
           Typically displayed in italics.  Example: ""F<.cshrc>""

       "S<text>" -- text contains non-breaking spaces
           This  means  that  the  words  in  text  should  not  be  broken  across lines.  Example:
           "S<$x ? $y : $z>".

       "X<topic name>" -- an index entry
           This is ignored by most formatters, but some may use it for building indexes.  It  always
           renders as empty-string.  Example: "X<absolutizing relative URLs>"

       "Z<>" -- a null (zero-effect) formatting code
           This  is  rarely  used.   It's one way to get around using an E<...> code sometimes.  For
           example, instead of ""NE<lt>3"" (for "N<3") you could write ""NZ<><3"" (the "Z<>"  breaks
           up  the  "N"  and the "<" so they can't be considered the part of a (fictitious) "N<...>"
           code).

           Another use is to indicate that stuff in "=item Z<>stuff..."  is not to be considered  to
           be a bullet or number.  For example, without the "Z<>", the line

            =item Z<>500 Server error

           could possibly be parsed as an item in a numbered list when it isn't meant to be.

           Still another use is to maintain visual space between "=item" lines.  If you specify

            =item foo

            =item bar

           it will typically get rendered as

            foo
            bar

           That may be what you want, but if what you really want is

            foo

            bar

           you can use "Z<>" to accomplish that

            =item foo

            Z<>

            =item bar

       Most  of the time, you will need only a single set of angle brackets to delimit the beginning
       and end of formatting codes.  However, sometimes you will want to  put  a  real  right  angle
       bracket  (a greater-than sign, '>') inside of a formatting code.  This is particularly common
       when using a formatting code to provide a different font-type for a snippet of code.  As with
       all things in Perl, there is more than one way to do it.  One way is  to  simply  escape  the
       closing bracket using an "E" code:

           C<$a E<lt>=E<gt> $b>

       This will produce: ""$a <=> $b""

       A  more  readable, and perhaps more "plain" way is to use an alternate set of delimiters that
       doesn't require a single ">" to be escaped.  Doubled angle brackets ("<<" and  ">>")  may  be
       used  if  and  only  if  there is whitespace right after the opening delimiter and whitespace
       right before the closing delimiter!  For example, the following will do the trick:

           C<< $a <=> $b >>

       In fact, you can use as many repeated angle-brackets as you like so long as you have the same
       number of them in  the  opening  and  closing  delimiters,  and  make  sure  that  whitespace
       immediately follows the last '<' of the opening delimiter, and immediately precedes the first
       '>' of the closing delimiter.  (The whitespace is ignored.)  So the following will also work:

           C<<< $a <=> $b >>>
           C<<<<  $a <=> $b     >>>>

       And they all mean exactly the same as this:

           C<$a E<lt>=E<gt> $b>

       The  multiple-bracket  form  does  not  affect  the  interpretation  of  the  contents of the
       formatting code, only how it must end.  That means that the examples above are  also  exactly
       the same as this:

           C<< $a E<lt>=E<gt> $b >>

       As  a  further example, this means that if you wanted to put these bits of code in "C" (code)
       style:

           open(X, ">>thing.dat") || die $!
           $foo->bar();

       you could do it like so:

           C<<< open(X, ">>thing.dat") || die $! >>>
           C<< $foo->bar(); >>

       which is presumably easier to read than the old way:

           C<open(X, "E<gt>E<gt>thing.dat") || die $!>
           C<$foo-E<gt>bar();>

       This is currently supported by  pod2text  (Pod::Text),  pod2man  (Pod::Man),  and  any  other
       pod2xxx  or  Pod::Xxxx  translators that use Pod::Parser 1.093 or later, or Pod::Tree 1.02 or
       later.

   The Intent
       The intent is simplicity of use, not power of expression.  Paragraphs  look  like  paragraphs
       (block  format),  so that they stand out visually, and so that I could run them through "fmt"
       easily to reformat them (that's F7 in my version of vi, or Esc Q in my version of emacs).   I
       wanted the translator to always leave the "'" and "`" and """ quotes alone, in verbatim mode,
       so  I could slurp in a working program, shift it over four spaces, and have it print out, er,
       verbatim.  And presumably in a monospace font.

       The Pod format is not necessarily sufficient for writing a book.  Pod is just meant to be  an
       idiot-proof  common  source  for  nroff,  HTML,  TeX, and other markup languages, as used for
       online documentation.  Translators exist for pod2text, pod2html, pod2man (that's for nroff(1)
       and troff(1)), pod2latex, and pod2fm.  Various others are available in CPAN.

   Embedding Pods in Perl Modules
       You can embed Pod documentation in your Perl modules and scripts.  Start  your  documentation
       with an empty line, a "=head1" command at the beginning, and end it with a "=cut" command and
       an  empty line.  The perl executable will ignore the Pod text.  You can place a Pod statement
       where perl expects the beginning of a new statement, but not  within  a  statement,  as  that
       would result in an error.  See any of the supplied library modules for examples.

       If  you're  going  to  put  your Pod at the end of the file, and you're using an "__END__" or
       "__DATA__" cut mark, make sure to put an empty line there before the first Pod command.

         __END__

         =head1 NAME

         Time::Local - efficiently compute time from local and GMT time

       Without that empty line before the "=head1", many translators wouldn't  have  recognized  the
       "=head1" as starting a Pod block.

   Hints for Writing Pod
       •


           The  podchecker command is provided for checking Pod syntax for errors and warnings.  For
           example, it checks for completely blank lines in Pod blocks and for unknown commands  and
           formatting  codes.   You  should  still  also  pass  your  document  through  one or more
           translators and proofread the result, or print out the result and proofread  that.   Some
           of  the  problems  found may be bugs in the translators, which you may or may not wish to
           work around.

       •   If you're more familiar with writing in HTML than with writing in Pod, you can  try  your
           hand  at  writing  documentation  in  simple  HTML,  and  converting  it  to Pod with the
           experimental Pod::HTML2Pod module, (available in CPAN),  and  looking  at  the  resulting
           code.  The experimental Pod::PXML module in CPAN might also be useful.

       •   Many older Pod translators require the lines before every Pod command and after every Pod
           command (including "=cut"!) to be a blank line.  Having something like this:

            # - - - - - - - - - - - -
            =item $firecracker->boom()

            This noisily detonates the firecracker object.
            =cut
            sub boom {
            ...

           ...will make such Pod translators completely fail to see the Pod block at all.

           Instead, have it like this:

            # - - - - - - - - - - - -

            =item $firecracker->boom()

            This noisily detonates the firecracker object.

            =cut

            sub boom {
            ...

       •   Some  older Pod translators require paragraphs (including command paragraphs like "=head2
           Functions") to be separated by completely empty lines.  If you have an  apparently  empty
           line  with  some spaces on it, this might not count as a separator for those translators,
           and that could cause odd formatting.

       •   Older translators might add wording around an L<> link, so that "L<Foo::Bar>" may  become
           "the  Foo::Bar  manpage",  for  example.   So you shouldn't write things like "the L<foo>
           documentation", if you want the translated document to  read  sensibly.   Instead,  write
           "the  L<Foo::Bar|Foo::Bar> documentation" or "L<the Foo::Bar documentation|Foo::Bar>", to
           control how the link comes out.

       •   Going past the 70th column in a verbatim block might  be  ungracefully  wrapped  by  some
           formatters.

SEE ALSO
       perlpodspec,  "PODs:  Embedded  Documentation"  in  perlsyn,  perlnewmod,  perldoc, pod2html,
       pod2man, podchecker.

AUTHOR
       Larry Wall, Sean M. Burke

perl v5.38.2                                 2026-06-12                                   PERLPOD(1)