pod2man 5.6.2

pod2man is a Perl module that can convert POD data to formatted *roff input.

SYNOPSIS

pod2man [--section=manext] [--release=version] [--center=string] [--date=string] [--fixed=font] [--fixedbold=font] [--fixeditalic=font] [--fixedbolditalic=font] [--official] [--lax] [--quotes=quotes] [input [output] ...]

pod2man --help

pod2man is a front-end for Pod::Man, using it to generate *roff input from POD source. The resulting *roff code is suitable for display on a terminal using nroff(1), normally via man(1), or printing using troff(1).

input is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be embedded in code). If input isnt given, it defaults to STDIN. output, if given, is the file to which to write the formatted output. If output isnt given, the formatted output is written to STDOUT. Several POD files can be processed in the same pod2man invocation (saving module load and compile times) by providing multiple pairs of input and output files on the command line.

--section, --release, --center, --date, and --official can be used to set the headers and footers to use; if not given, Pod::Man will assume various defaults.

pod2man assumes that your *roff formatters have a fixed-width font named CW. If yours is called something else (like CR), use --fixed to specify it. This generally only matters for troff output for printing. Similarly, you can set the fonts used for bold, italic, and bold italic fixed-width output.

Besides the obvious pod conversions, Pod::Man, and therefore pod2man also takes care of formatting func(), func(n), and simple variable references like $foo or @bar so you dont have to use code escapes for them; complex expressions like $fred{stuff} will still need to be escaped, though. It also translates dashes that arent used as hyphens into en dashes, makes long dashes--like this--into proper em dashes, fixes "paired quotes," and takes care of several other troff-specific tweaks. See Pod::Man for complete information.

OPTION

-c string, --center=string

Sets the centered page header to string. The default is "User Contributed Perl Documentation", but also see --official below.

-d string, --date=string

Set the left-hand footer string to this value. By default, the modification date of the input file will be used, or the current date if input comes from STDIN.

--fixed=font

The fixed-width font to use for vertabim text and code. Defaults to CW. Some systems may want CR instead. Only matters for troff(1) output.

--fixedbold=font

Bold version of the fixed-width font. Defaults to CB. Only matters for troff(1) output.

--fixeditalic=font

Italic version of the fixed-width font (actually, something of a misnomer, since most fixed-width fonts only have an oblique version, not an italic version). Defaults to CI. Only matters for troff(1) output.

--fixedbolditalic=font

Bold italic (probably actually oblique) version of the fixed-width font. Pod::Man doesnt assume you have this, and defaults to CB. Some systems (such as Solaris) have this font available as CX. Only matters for troff(1) output.

-h, --help

Print out usage information.

-l, --lax

Dont complain when required sections are missing. Not currently used, as POD checking functionality is not yet implemented in Pod::Man.

-o, --official

Set the default header to indicate that this page is part of the standard Perl release, if --center is not also given.

-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; if quotes is two characters, the first character is used as the left quote and the second as the right quoted; and if quotes is four characters, the first two are used as the left quote and the second two 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 (but the font is still changed for troff output).

-r, --release

Set the centered footer. By default, this is the version of Perl you run pod2man under. Note that some system an macro sets assume that the centered footer will be a modification date and will prepend something like "Last modified: "; if this is the case, you may want to set --release to the last modified date and --date to the version number.

-s, --section

Set the section for the .TH macro. The standard section numbering convention is to use 1 for user commands, 2 for system calls, 3 for functions, 4 for devices, 5 for file formats, 6 for games, 7 for miscellaneous information, and 8 for administrator commands. There is a lot of variation here, however; some systems (like Solaris) use 4 for file formats, 5 for miscellaneous information, and 7 for devices. Still others use 1m instead of 8, or some mix of both. About the only section numbers that are reliably consistent are 1, 2, and 3.
By default, section 1 will be used unless the file ends in .pm in which case section 3 will be selected.

EXAMPLES

pod2man program > program.1
pod2man SomeModule.pm /usr/perl/man/man3/SomeModule.3
pod2man --section=7 note.pod > note.7

If you would like to print out a lot of man page continuously, you probably want to set the C and D registers to set contiguous page numbering and even/odd paging, at least on some versions of man(7).

troff -man -rC1 -rD1 perl.1 perldata.1 perlsyn.1 ...

To get index entries on stderr, turn on the F register, as in:

troff -man -rF1 perl.1

The indexing merely outputs messages via .tm for each major page, section, subsection, item, and any X<> directives.