Pod::Checker - phpMan

NAME
    Pod::Checker - check pod documents for syntax errors

SYNOPSIS
      use Pod::Checker;

      $syntax_okay = podchecker($filepath, $outputpath, %options);

      my $checker = Pod::Checker->new(%options);
      $checker->parse_from_file($filepath, \*STDERR);

OPTIONS/ARGUMENTS
    $filepath is the input POD to read and $outputpath is where to write POD
    syntax error messages. Either argument may be a scalar indicating a
    file-path, or else a reference to an open filehandle. If unspecified,
    the input-file it defaults to "\*STDIN", and the output-file defaults to
    "\*STDERR".

  podchecker()
    This function can take a hash of options:

    -warnings => *val*
        Turn warnings on/off. *val* is usually 1 for on, but higher values
        trigger additional warnings. See "Warnings".

    -quiet => *val*
        If "val" is true, do not print any errors/warnings.

DESCRIPTION
    podchecker will perform syntax checking of Perl5 POD format
    documentation.

    Curious/ambitious users are welcome to propose additional features they
    wish to see in Pod::Checker and podchecker and verify that the checks
    are consistent with perlpod.

    The following checks are currently performed:

    *   Unknown '=xxxx' commands, unknown 'X<...>' interior-sequences, and
        unterminated interior sequences.

    *   Check for proper balancing of "=begin" and "=end". The contents of
        such a block are generally ignored, i.e. no syntax checks are
        performed.

    *   Check for proper nesting and balancing of "=over", "=item" and
        "=back".

    *   Check for same nested interior-sequences (e.g. "L<...L<...>...>").

    *   Check for malformed or non-existing entities "E<...>".

    *   Check for correct syntax of hyperlinks "L<...>". See perlpod for
        details.

    *   Check for unresolved document-internal links. This check may also
        reveal misspelled links that seem to be internal links but should be
        links to something else.

DIAGNOSTICS
  Errors
    *   empty =headn

        A heading ("=head1" or "=head2") without any text? That ain't no
        heading!

    *   =over on line *N* without closing =back

    *   You forgot a '=back' before '=head*N*'

    *   =over is the last thing in the document?!

        The "=over" command does not have a corresponding "=back" before the
        next heading ("=head1" or "=head2") or the end of the file.

    *   '=item' outside of any '=over'

    *   =back without =over

        An "=item" or "=back" command has been found outside a
        "=over"/"=back" block.

    *   Can't have a 0 in =over *N*

        You need to indent a strictly positive number of spaces, not 0.

    *   =over should be: '=over' or '=over positive_number'

        Either have an argumentless =over, or have its argument a strictly
        positive number.

    *   =begin *TARGET* without matching =end *TARGET*

        A "=begin" command was found that has no matching =end command.

    *   =begin without a target?

        A "=begin" command was found that is not followed by the formatter
        specification.

    *   =end *TARGET* without matching =begin.

        A standalone "=end" command was found.

    *   '=end' without a target?

        '=end' directives need to have a target, just like =begin
        directives.

    *   '=end *TARGET*' is invalid.

        *TARGET* needs to be one word

    *   =end *CONTENT* doesn't match =begin *TARGET*

        *CONTENT* needs to match =begin's *TARGET*.

    *   =for without a target?

        There is no specification of the formatter after the "=for" command.

    *   unresolved internal link *NAME*

        The given link to *NAME* does not have a matching node in the
        current POD. This also happened when a single word node name is not
        enclosed in "".

    *   Unknown directive: *CMD*

        An invalid POD command has been found. Valid are "=head1", "=head2",
        "=head3", "=head4", "=over", "=item", "=back", "=begin", "=end",
        "=for", "=pod", "=cut"

    *   Deleting unknown formatting code *SEQ*

        An invalid markup command has been encountered. Valid are: "B<>",
        "C<>", "E<>", "F<>", "I<>", "L<>", "S<>", "X<>", "Z<>"

    *   Unterminated *SEQ*<> sequence

        An unclosed formatting code

    *   An E<...> surrounding strange content

        The *STRING* found cannot be interpreted as a character entity.

    *   An empty E<>

    *   An empty "L<>"

    *   An empty X<>

        There needs to be content inside E, L, and X formatting codes.

    *   Spurious text after =pod / =cut

        The commands "=pod" and "=cut" do not take any arguments.

    *   =back doesn't take any parameters, but you said =back *ARGUMENT*

        The "=back" command does not take any arguments.

    *   =pod directives shouldn't be over one line long! Ignoring all *N*
        lines of content

        Self explanatory

    *   =cut found outside a pod block.

        A '=cut' directive found in the middle of non-POD

    *   Invalid =encoding syntax: *CONTENT*

        Syntax error in =encoding directive

  Warnings
    These may not necessarily cause trouble, but indicate mediocre style.

    *   nested commands *CMD*<...*CMD*<...>...>

        Two nested identical markup commands have been found. Generally this
        does not make sense.

    *   multiple occurrences (*N*) of link target *name*

        The POD file has some "=item" and/or "=head" commands that have the
        same text. Potential hyperlinks to such a text cannot be unique
        then. This warning is printed only with warning level greater than
        one.

    *   line containing nothing but whitespace in paragraph

        There is some whitespace on a seemingly empty line. POD is very
        sensitive to such things, so this is flagged. vi users switch on the
        list option to avoid this problem.

    *   =item has no contents

        There is a list "=item" that has no text contents. You probably want
        to delete empty items.

    *   You can't have =items (as at line *N*) unless the first thing after
        the =over is an =item

        A list introduced by "=over" starts with a text or verbatim
        paragraph, but continues with "=item"s. Move the non-item paragraph
        out of the "=over"/"=back" block.

    *   Expected '=item *EXPECTED VALUE*'

    *   Expected '=item *'

    *   Possible =item type mismatch: '*x*' found leading a supposed
        definition =item

        A list started with e.g. a bullet-like "=item" and continued with a
        numbered one. This is obviously inconsistent. For most translators
        the type of the *first* "=item" determines the type of the list.

    *   You have '=item x' instead of the expected '=item *N*'

        Erroneous numbering of =item numbers; they need to ascend
        consecutively.

    *   Unknown E content in E<*CONTENT*>

        A character entity was found that does not belong to the standard
        ISO set or the POD specials "verbar" and "sol". *Currently, this
        warning only appears if a character entity was found that does not
        have a Unicode character. This should be fixed to adhere to the
        original warning.*

    *   empty =over/=back block

        The list opened with "=over" does not contain anything.

    *   empty section in previous paragraph

        The previous section (introduced by a "=head" command) does not
        contain any valid content. This usually indicates that something is
        missing. Note: A "=head1" followed immediately by "=head2" does not
        trigger this warning.

    *   Verbatim paragraph in NAME section

        The NAME section ("=head1 NAME") should consist of a single
        paragraph with the script/module name, followed by a dash `-' and a
        very short description of what the thing is good for.

    *   =head*n* without preceding higher level

        For example if there is a "=head2" in the POD file prior to a
        "=head1".

    *   A non-empty Z<>

        The "Z<>" sequence is supposed to be empty. Caveat: this issue is
        detected in Pod::Simple and will be flagged as an *ERROR* by any
        client code; any contents of "Z<...>" will be disregarded, anyway.

  Hyperlinks
    There are some warnings with respect to malformed hyperlinks:

    *   ignoring leading/trailing whitespace in link

        There is whitespace at the beginning or the end of the contents of
        L<...>.

    *   alternative text/node '%s' contains non-escaped | or /

        The characters "|" and "/" are special in the L<...> context.
        Although the hyperlink parser does its best to determine which "/"
        is text and which is a delimiter in case of doubt, one ought to
        escape these literal characters like this:

          /     E<sol>
          |     E<verbar>

    Note that the line number of the error/warning may refer to the line
    number of the start of the paragraph in which the error/warning exists,
    not the line number that the error/warning is on. This bug is present in
    errors/warnings related to formatting codes. *This should be fixed.*

RETURN VALUE
    podchecker returns the number of POD syntax errors found or -1 if there
    were no POD commands at all found in the file.

EXAMPLES
    See "SYNOPSIS"

SCRIPTS
    The podchecker script that comes with this distribution is a lean
    wrapper around this module. See the online manual with

      podchecker -help
      podchecker -man

INTERFACE
    While checking, this module collects document properties, e.g. the nodes
    for hyperlinks ("=headX", "=item") and index entries ("X<>"). POD
    translators can use this feature to syntax-check and get the nodes in a
    first pass before actually starting to convert. This is expensive in
    terms of execution time, but allows for very robust conversions.

    Since v1.24 the Pod::Checker module uses only the poderror method to
    print errors and warnings. The summary output (e.g. "Pod syntax OK") has
    been dropped from the module and has been included in podchecker (the
    script). This allows users of Pod::Checker to control completely the
    output behavior. Users of podchecker (the script) get the well-known
    behavior.

    v1.45 inherits from Pod::Simple as opposed to all previous versions
    inheriting from Pod::Parser. Do not use Pod::Simple's interface when
    using Pod::Checker unless it is documented somewhere on this page. I
    repeat, DO NOT USE POD::SIMPLE'S INTERFACE.

    The following list documents the overrides to Pod::Simple, primarily to
    make Pod::Coverage happy:

    end_B
    end_C
    end_Document
    end_F
    end_I
    end_L
    end_Para
    end_S
    end_X
    end_fcode
    end_for
    end_head
    end_head1
    end_head2
    end_head3
    end_head4
    end_item
    end_item_bullet
    end_item_number
    end_item_text
    handle_pod_and_cut
    handle_text
    handle_whiteline
    hyperlink
    scream
    start_B
    start_C
    start_Data
    start_F
    start_I
    start_L
    start_Para
    start_S
    start_Verbatim
    start_X
    start_fcode
    start_for
    start_head
    start_head1
    start_head2
    start_head3
    start_head4
    start_item_bullet
    start_item_number
    start_item_text
    start_over
    start_over_block
    start_over_bullet
    start_over_empty
    start_over_number
    start_over_text
    whine

    "Pod::Checker->new( %options )"
        Return a reference to a new Pod::Checker object that inherits from
        Pod::Simple and is used for calling the required methods later. The
        following options are recognized:

        "-warnings => num" Print warnings if "num" is true. The higher the
        value of "num", the more warnings are printed. Currently there are
        only levels 1 and 2.

        "-quiet => num" If "num" is true, do not print any errors/warnings.
        This is useful when Pod::Checker is used to munge POD code into
        plain text from within POD formatters.

    "$checker->poderror( @args )"
    "$checker->poderror( {%opts}, @args )"
        Internal method for printing errors and warnings. If no options are
        given, simply prints "@_". The following options are recognized and
        used to form the output:

          -msg

        A message to print prior to @args.

          -line

        The line number the error occurred in.

          -file

        The file (name) the error occurred in. Defaults to the name of the
        current file being processed.

          -severity

        The error level, should be 'WARNING' or 'ERROR'.

    "$checker->num_errors()"
        Set (if argument specified) and retrieve the number of errors found.

    "$checker->num_warnings()"
        Set (if argument specified) and retrieve the number of warnings
        found.

    "$checker->name()"
        Set (if argument specified) and retrieve the canonical name of POD
        as found in the "=head1 NAME" section.

    "$checker->node()"
        Add (if argument specified) and retrieve the nodes (as defined by
        "=headX" and "=item") of the current POD. The nodes are returned in
        the order of their occurrence. They consist of plain text, each
        piece of whitespace is collapsed to a single blank.

    "$checker->idx()"
        Add (if argument specified) and retrieve the index entries (as
        defined by "X<>") of the current POD. They consist of plain text,
        each piece of whitespace is collapsed to a single blank.

    "$checker->hyperlinks()"
        Retrieve an array containing the hyperlinks to things outside the
        current POD (as defined by "L<>").

        Each is an instance of a class with the following methods:

    line()
        Returns the approximate line number in which the link was
        encountered

    type()
        Returns the type of the link; one of: "url" for things like
        "http://www.foo", "man" for man pages, or "pod".

    page()
        Returns the linked-to page or url.

    node()
        Returns the anchor or node within the linked-to page, or an empty
        string ("") if none appears in the link.

AUTHOR
    Please report bugs using <http://rt.cpan.org>.

    Brad Appleton <bradapp AT enteract.com> (initial version), Marek Rouchal
    <marekr AT cpan.org>, Marc Green <marcgreen AT cpan.org> (port to Pod::Simple)
    Ricardo Signes <rjbs AT cpan.org> (more porting to Pod::Simple) Karl
    Williamson <khw AT cpan.org> (more porting to Pod::Simple)

    Based on code for Pod::Text::pod2text() written by Tom Christiansen
    <tchrist AT mox.com>