pod2man
POD2MAN(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide POD2MAN(1)
NAME
pod2man - 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] [--name=name] [--official] [--lax]
[--quotes=quotes] [--verbose] [input [output] ...]
pod2man --help
DESCRIPTION
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 isn't given, it defaults to STDIN. output, if given,
is the file to which to write the formatted output. If output isn't
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. See below or Pod::Man for details.
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 ref-
erences like $foo or @bar so you don't have to use code escapes for
them; complex expressions like $fred{'stuff'} will still need to be
escaped, though. It also translates dashes that aren't 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.
OPTIONS
-c string, --center=string
Sets the centered page header to string. The default is "User Con-
tributed 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 mat-
ters 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 ver-
sion, 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 doesn't 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
No longer used. pod2man used to check its input for validity as a
manual page, but this should now be done by podchecker(1) instead.
Accepted for backwards compatibility; this option no longer does
anything.
-n name, --name=name
Set the name of the manual page to name. Without this option, the
manual name is set to the uppercased base name of the file being
converted unless the manual section is 3, in which case the path is
parsed to see if it is a Perl module path. If it is, a path like
".../lib/Pod/Man.pm" is converted into a name like "Pod::Man".
This option, if given, overrides any automatic determination of the
name.
Note that this option is probably not useful when converting multi-
ple POD files at once. The convention for Unix man pages for com-
mands is for the man page title to be in all-uppercase even if the
command isn't.
-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 number-
ing 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 consis-
tent 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.
-v, --verbose
Print out the name of each output file as it is being generated.
DIAGNOSTICS
If pod2man fails with errors, see Pod::Man and Pod::Parser for informa-
tion about what those errors might mean.
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 num-
bering 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. See Pod::Man for
more details.
BUGS
Lots of this documentation is duplicated from Pod::Man.
NOTES
For those not sure of the proper layout of a man page, here are some
notes on writing a proper man page.
The name of the program being documented is conventionally written in
bold (using B<>) wherever it occurs, as are all program options. Argu-
ments should be written in italics (I<>). Functions are traditionally
written in italics; if you write a function as function(), Pod::Man
will take care of this for you. Literal code or commands should be in
C<>. References to other man pages should be in the form "manpage(sec-
tion)", and Pod::Man will automatically format those appropriately. As
an exception, it's traditional not to use this form when referring to
module documentation; use "L<Module::Name>" instead.
References to other programs or functions are normally in the form of
man page references so that cross-referencing tools can provide the
user with links and the like. It's possible to overdo this, though, so
be careful not to clutter your documentation with too much markup.
The major headers should be set out using a "=head1" directive, and are
historically written in the rather startling ALL UPPER CASE format,
although this is not mandatory. Minor headers may be included using
"=head2", and are typically in mixed case.
The standard sections of a manual page are:
NAME
Mandatory section; should be a comma-separated list of programs or
functions documented by this podpage, such as:
foo, bar - programs to do something
Manual page indexers are often extremely picky about the format of
this section, so don't put anything in it except this line. A sin-
gle dash, and only a single dash, should separate the list of pro-
grams or functions from the description. Functions should not be
qualified with "()" or the like. The description should ideally
fit on a single line, even if a man program replaces the dash with
a few tabs.
SYNOPSIS
A short usage summary for programs and functions. This section is
mandatory for section 3 pages.
DESCRIPTION
Extended description and discussion of the program or functions, or
the body of the documentation for man pages that document something
else. If particularly long, it's a good idea to break this up into
subsections "=head2" directives like:
=head2 Normal Usage
=head2 Advanced Features
=head2 Writing Configuration Files
or whatever is appropriate for your documentation.
OPTIONS
Detailed description of each of the command-line options taken by
the program. This should be separate from the description for the
use of things like Pod::Usage. This is normally presented as a
list, with each option as a separate "=item". The specific option
string should be enclosed in B<>. Any values that the option takes
should be enclosed in I<>. For example, the section for the option
--section=manext would be introduced with:
=item B<--section>=I<manext>
Synonymous options (like both the short and long forms) are sepa-
rated by a comma and a space on the same "=item" line, or option-
ally listed as their own item with a reference to the canonical
name. For example, since --section can also be written as -s, the
above would be:
=item B<-s> I<manext>, B<--section>=I<manext>
(Writing the short option first is arguably easier to read, since
the long option is long enough to draw the eye to it anyway and the
short option can otherwise get lost in visual noise.)
RETURN VALUE
What the program or function returns, if successful. This section
can be omitted for programs whose precise exit codes aren't impor-
tant, provided they return 0 on success as is standard. It should
always be present for functions.
ERRORS
Exceptions, error return codes, exit statuses, and errno settings.
Typically used for function documentation; program documentation
uses DIAGNOSTICS instead. The general rule of thumb is that errors
printed to STDOUT or STDERR and intended for the end user are docu-
mented in DIAGNOSTICS while errors passed internal to the calling
program and intended for other programmers are documented in
ERRORS. When documenting a function that sets errno, a full list
of the possible errno values should be given here.
DIAGNOSTICS
All possible messages the program can print out--and what they
mean. You may wish to follow the same documentation style as the
Perl documentation; see perldiag(1) for more details (and look at
the POD source as well).
If applicable, please include details on what the user should do to
correct the error; documenting an error as indicating "the input
buffer is too small" without telling the user how to increase the
size of the input buffer (or at least telling them that it isn't
possible) aren't very useful.
EXAMPLES
Give some example uses of the program or function. Don't skimp;
users often find this the most useful part of the documentation.
The examples are generally given as verbatim paragraphs.
Don't just present an example without explaining what it does.
Adding a short paragraph saying what the example will do can
increase the value of the example immensely.
ENVIRONMENT
Environment variables that the program cares about, normally pre-
sented as a list using "=over", "=item", and "=back". For example:
=over 6
=item HOME
Used to determine the user's home directory. F<.foorc> in this
directory is read for configuration details, if it exists.
=back
Since environment variables are normally in all uppercase, no addi-
tional special formatting is generally needed; they're glaring
enough as it is.
FILES
All files used by the program or function, normally presented as a
list, and what it uses them for. File names should be enclosed in
F<>. It's particularly important to document files that will be
potentially modified.
CAVEATS
Things to take special care with, sometimes called WARNINGS.
BUGS
Things that are broken or just don't work quite right.
RESTRICTIONS
Bugs you don't plan to fix. :-)
NOTES
Miscellaneous commentary.
SEE ALSO
Other man pages to check out, like man(1), man(7), makewhatis(8),
or catman(8). Normally a simple list of man pages separated by
commas, or a paragraph giving the name of a reference work. Man
page references, if they use the standard "name(section)" form,
don't have to be enclosed in L<> (although it's recommended), but
other things in this section probably should be when appropriate.
If the package has a mailing list, include a URL or subscription
instructions here.
If the package has a web site, include a URL here.
AUTHOR
Who wrote it (use AUTHORS for multiple people). Including your
current e-mail address (or some e-mail address to which bug reports
should be sent) so that users have a way of contacting you is a
good idea. Remember that program documentation tends to roam the
wild for far longer than you expect and pick an e-mail address
that's likely to last if possible.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
For copyright
Copyright YEAR(s) by YOUR NAME(s)
(No, (C) is not needed. No, "all rights reserved" is not needed.)
For licensing the easiest way is to use the same licensing as Perl
itself:
This library is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself.
This makes it easy for people to use your module with Perl. Note
that this licensing is neither an endorsement or a requirement, you
are of course free to choose any licensing.
HISTORY
Programs derived from other sources sometimes have this, or you
might keep a modification log here. If the log gets overly long or
detailed, consider maintaining it in a separate file, though.
In addition, some systems use CONFORMING TO to note conformance to rel-
evant standards and MT-LEVEL to note safeness for use in threaded pro-
grams or signal handlers. These headings are primarily useful when
documenting parts of a C library. Documentation of object-oriented
libraries or modules may use CONSTRUCTORS and METHODS sections for
detailed documentation of the parts of the library and save the
DESCRIPTION section for an overview; other large modules may use FUNC-
TIONS for similar reasons. Some people use OVERVIEW to summarize the
description if it's quite long.
Section ordering varies, although NAME should always be the first sec-
tion (you'll break some man page systems otherwise), and NAME, SYNOP-
SIS, DESCRIPTION, and OPTIONS generally always occur first and in that
order if present. In general, SEE ALSO, AUTHOR, and similar material
should be left for last. Some systems also move WARNINGS and NOTES to
last. The order given above should be reasonable for most purposes.
Finally, as a general note, try not to use an excessive amount of
markup. As documented here and in Pod::Man, you can safely leave Perl
variables, function names, man page references, and the like unadorned
by markup and the POD translators will figure it out for you. This
makes it much easier to later edit the documentation. Note that many
existing translators (including this one currently) will do the wrong
thing with e-mail addresses or URLs when wrapped in L<>, so don't do
that.
For additional information that may be more accurate for your specific
system, see either man(5) or man(7) depending on your system manual
section numbering conventions.
SEE ALSO
Pod::Man, Pod::Parser, man(1), nroff(1), podchecker(1), troff(1),
man(7)
The man page documenting the an macro set may be man(5) instead of
man(7) on your system.
The current version of this script is always available from its web
site at <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>. It is also
part of the Perl core distribution as of 5.6.0.
AUTHOR
Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, based very heavily on the original
pod2man by Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen. Large portions of this
documentation, particularly the sections on the anatomy of a proper man
page, are taken from the pod2man documentation by Tom.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001 by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
perl v5.8.6 2005-05-14 POD2MAN(1)
