{ "mode": "perldoc", "parameter": "Pod::Text", "section": "", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AText/json", "generated": "2026-06-09T14:28:39Z", "synopsis": "use Pod::Text;\nmy $parser = Pod::Text->new (sentence => 1, width => 78);\n# Read POD from STDIN and write to STDOUT.\n$parser->parsefromfilehandle;\n# Read POD from file.pod and write to file.txt.\n$parser->parsefromfile ('file.pod', 'file.txt');", "sections": { "NAME": { "content": "Pod::Text - Convert POD data to formatted text\n", "subsections": [] }, "SYNOPSIS": { "content": "use Pod::Text;\nmy $parser = Pod::Text->new (sentence => 1, width => 78);\n\n# Read POD from STDIN and write to STDOUT.\n$parser->parsefromfilehandle;\n\n# Read POD from file.pod and write to file.txt.\n$parser->parsefromfile ('file.pod', 'file.txt');\n", "subsections": [] }, "DESCRIPTION": { "content": "Pod::Text is a module that can convert documentation in the POD format (the preferred language\nfor documenting Perl) into formatted text. It uses no special formatting controls or codes\nwhatsoever, and its output is therefore suitable for nearly any device.\n\nAs a derived class from Pod::Simple, Pod::Text supports the same methods and interfaces. See\nPod::Simple for all the details; briefly, one creates a new parser with \"Pod::Text->new()\" and\nthen normally calls parsefile().\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "new", "content": "The currently recognized options are:\n\nalt If set to a true value, selects an alternate output format that, among other things, uses a\ndifferent heading style and marks \"=item\" entries with a colon in the left margin. Defaults\nto false.\n\ncode\nIf set to a true value, the non-POD parts of the input file will be included in the output.\nUseful for viewing code documented with POD blocks with the POD rendered and the code left\nintact.\n\nerrors\nHow to report errors. \"die\" says to throw an exception on any POD formatting error. \"stderr\"\nsays to report errors on standard error, but not to throw an exception. \"pod\" says to\ninclude a POD ERRORS section in the resulting documentation summarizing the errors. \"none\"\nignores POD errors entirely, as much as possible.\n\nThe default is \"pod\".\n\nindent\nThe number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default indentation for \"=over\" blocks.\nDefaults to 4.\n\nloose\nIf set to a true value, a blank line is printed after a \"=head1\" heading. If set to false\n(the default), no blank line is printed after \"=head1\", although one is still printed after\n\"=head2\". This is the default because it's the expected formatting for manual pages; if\nyou're formatting arbitrary text documents, setting this to true may result in more pleasing\noutput.\n\nmargin\nThe width of the left margin in spaces. Defaults to 0. This is the margin for all text,\nincluding headings, not the amount by which regular text is indented; for the latter, see\nthe *indent* option. To set the right margin, see the *width* option.\n\nnourls\nNormally, L<> formatting codes with a URL but anchor text are formatted to show both the\nanchor text and the URL. In other words:\n\nL\n\nis formatted as:\n\nfoo \n\nThis option, if set to a true value, suppresses the URL when anchor text is given, so this\nexample would be formatted as just \"foo\". This can produce less cluttered output in cases\nwhere the URLs are not particularly important.\n\nquotes\nSets the quote marks used to surround C<> text. If the value is a single character, it is\nused as both the left and right quote. Otherwise, it is split in half, and the first half of\nthe string is used as the left quote and the second is used as the right quote.\n\nThis may also be set to the special value \"none\", in which case no quote marks are added\naround C<> text.\n\nsentence\nIf set to a true value, Pod::Text will assume that each sentence ends in two spaces, and\nwill try to preserve that spacing. If set to false, all consecutive whitespace in\nnon-verbatim paragraphs is compressed into a single space. Defaults to false.\n\nstderr\nSend error messages about invalid POD to standard error instead of appending a POD ERRORS\nsection to the generated output. This is equivalent to setting \"errors\" to \"stderr\" if\n\"errors\" is not already set. It is supported for backward compatibility.\n\nutf8\nBy default, Pod::Text uses the same output encoding as the input encoding of the POD source\n(provided that Perl was built with PerlIO; otherwise, it doesn't encode its output). If this\noption is given, the output encoding is forced to UTF-8.\n\nBe aware that, when using this option, the input encoding of your POD source should be\nproperly declared unless it's US-ASCII. Pod::Simple will attempt to guess the encoding and\nmay be successful if it's Latin-1 or UTF-8, but it will produce warnings. Use the\n\"=encoding\" command to declare the encoding. See perlpod(1) for more information.\n\nwidth\nThe column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side. Defaults to 76.\n\nThe standard Pod::Simple method parsefile() takes one argument naming the POD file to read\nfrom. By default, the output is sent to \"STDOUT\", but this can be changed with the outputfh()\nmethod.\n\nThe standard Pod::Simple method parsefromfile() takes up to two arguments, the first being the\ninput file to read POD from and the second being the file to write the formatted output to.\n\nYou can also call parselines() to parse an array of lines or parsestringdocument() to parse a\ndocument already in memory. As with parsefile(), parselines() and parsestringdocument()\ndefault to sending their output to \"STDOUT\" unless changed with the outputfh() method. Be aware\nthat parselines() and parsestringdocument() both expect raw bytes, not decoded characters.\n\nTo put the output from any parse method into a string instead of a file handle, call the" }, { "name": "output_string", "content": "See Pod::Simple for more specific details on the methods available to all derived parsers.\n" } ] }, "DIAGNOSTICS": { "content": "Bizarre space in item\nItem called without tag\n(W) Something has gone wrong in internal \"=item\" processing. These messages indicate a bug\nin Pod::Text; you should never see them.\n\nCan't open %s for reading: %s\n(F) Pod::Text was invoked via the compatibility mode pod2text() interface and the input file\nit was given could not be opened.\n\nInvalid errors setting \"%s\"\n(F) The \"errors\" parameter to the constructor was set to an unknown value.\n\nInvalid quote specification \"%s\"\n(F) The quote specification given (the \"quotes\" option to the constructor) was invalid. A\nquote specification must be either one character long or an even number (greater than one)\ncharacters long.\n\nPOD document had syntax errors\n(F) The POD document being formatted had syntax errors and the \"errors\" option was set to\n\"die\".\n", "subsections": [] }, "BUGS": { "content": "Encoding handling assumes that PerlIO is available and does not work properly if it isn't. The\n\"utf8\" option is therefore not supported unless Perl is built with PerlIO support.\n", "subsections": [] }, "CAVEATS": { "content": "If Pod::Text is given the \"utf8\" option, the encoding of its output file handle will be forced\nto UTF-8 if possible, overriding any existing encoding. This will be done even if the file\nhandle is not created by Pod::Text and was passed in from outside. This maintains consistency\nregardless of PERLUNICODE and other settings.\n\nIf the \"utf8\" option is not given, the encoding of its output file handle will be forced to the\ndetected encoding of the input POD, which preserves whatever the input text is. This ensures\nbackward compatibility with earlier, pre-Unicode versions of this module, without large numbers\nof Perl warnings.\n\nThis is not ideal, but it seems to be the best compromise. If it doesn't work for you, please\nlet me know the details of how it broke.\n", "subsections": [] }, "NOTES": { "content": "This is a replacement for an earlier Pod::Text module written by Tom Christiansen. It has a\nrevamped interface, since it now uses Pod::Simple, but an interface roughly compatible with the\nold Pod::Text::pod2text() function is still available. Please change to the new calling\nconvention, though.\n\nThe original Pod::Text contained code to do formatting via termcap sequences, although it wasn't\nturned on by default and it was problematic to get it to work at all. This rewrite doesn't even\ntry to do that, but a subclass of it does. Look for Pod::Text::Termcap.\n", "subsections": [] }, "AUTHOR": { "content": "Russ Allbery , based *very* heavily on the original Pod::Text by Tom Christiansen\n and its conversion to Pod::Parser by Brad Appleton\n. Sean Burke's initial conversion of Pod::Man to use Pod::Simple provided\nmuch-needed guidance on how to use Pod::Simple.\n", "subsections": [] }, "COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE": { "content": "Copyright 1999-2002, 2004, 2006, 2008-2009, 2012-2016, 2018-2019 Russ Allbery \n\nThis program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as\nPerl itself.\n", "subsections": [] }, "SEE ALSO": { "content": "Pod::Simple, Pod::Text::Termcap, perlpod(1), pod2text(1)\n\nThe current version of this module is always available from its web site at\n. It is also part of the Perl core\ndistribution as of 5.6.0.\n", "subsections": [] } }, "summary": "Pod::Text - Convert POD data to formatted text", "flags": [], "examples": [], "see_also": [ { "name": "perlpod", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/perlpod/1/json" }, { "name": "pod2text", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pod2text/1/json" } ] }