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1 | |
2 | =head1 NAME |
3 | |
4 | perldoc - Look up Perl documentation in Pod format. |
5 | |
6 | =head1 SYNOPSIS |
7 | |
8 | B<perldoc> [B<-h>] [B<-v>] [B<-t>] [B<-u>] [B<-m>] [B<-l>] [B<-F>] |
9 | [B<-i>] [B<-V>] [B<-T>] [B<-r>] |
10 | [B<-dI<destination_file>>] |
11 | [B<-oI<formatname>>] |
12 | [B<-MI<FormatterClassName>>] |
13 | [B<-wI<formatteroption:value>>] |
14 | [B<-n>I<nroff-replacement>] |
15 | [B<-X>] |
16 | PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName |
17 | |
18 | B<perldoc> B<-f> BuiltinFunction |
19 | |
20 | B<perldoc> B<-q> FAQ Keyword |
21 | |
22 | See below for more description of the switches. |
23 | |
24 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
25 | |
26 | I<perldoc> looks up a piece of documentation in .pod format that is embedded |
27 | in the perl installation tree or in a perl script, and displays it via |
28 | C<pod2man | nroff -man | $PAGER>. (In addition, if running under HP-UX, |
29 | C<col -x> will be used.) This is primarily used for the documentation for |
30 | the perl library modules. |
31 | |
32 | Your system may also have man pages installed for those modules, in |
33 | which case you can probably just use the man(1) command. |
34 | |
35 | If you are looking for a table of contents to the Perl library modules |
36 | documentation, see the L<perltoc> page. |
37 | |
38 | =head1 OPTIONS |
39 | |
40 | =over 5 |
41 | |
42 | =item B<-h> |
43 | |
44 | Prints out a brief B<h>elp message. |
45 | |
46 | =item B<-v> |
47 | |
48 | Describes search for the item in detail (B<v>erbosely). |
49 | |
50 | =item B<-t> |
51 | |
52 | Display docs using plain B<t>ext converter, instead of nroff. This may be faster, |
53 | but it probably won't look as nice. |
54 | |
55 | =item B<-u> |
56 | |
57 | Skip the real Pod formatting, and just show the raw Pod source (B<U>nformatted) |
58 | |
59 | =item B<-m> I<module> |
60 | |
61 | Display the entire module: both code and unformatted pod documentation. |
62 | This may be useful if the docs don't explain a function in the detail |
63 | you need, and you'd like to inspect the code directly; perldoc will find |
64 | the file for you and simply hand it off for display. |
65 | |
66 | =item B<-l> |
67 | |
68 | Display onB<l>y the file name of the module found. |
69 | |
70 | =item B<-F> |
71 | |
72 | Consider arguments as file names; no search in directories will be performed. |
73 | |
74 | =item B<-f> I<perlfunc> |
75 | |
76 | The B<-f> option followed by the name of a perl built in function will |
77 | extract the documentation of this function from L<perlfunc>. |
78 | |
79 | Example: |
80 | |
81 | perldoc -f sprintf |
82 | |
83 | =item B<-q> I<perlfaq-search-regexp> |
84 | |
85 | The B<-q> option takes a regular expression as an argument. It will search |
86 | the B<q>uestion headings in perlfaq[1-9] and print the entries matching |
87 | the regular expression. Example: C<perldoc -q shuffle> |
88 | |
89 | =item B<-T> |
90 | |
91 | This specifies that the output is not to be sent to a pager, but is to |
92 | be sent right to STDOUT. |
93 | |
94 | =item B<-d> I<destination-filename> |
95 | |
96 | This specifies that the output is to be sent neither to a pager nor |
97 | to STDOUT, but is to be saved to the specified filename. Example: |
98 | C<perldoc -oLaTeX -dtextwrapdocs.tex Text::Wrap> |
99 | |
100 | =item B<-o> I<output-formatname> |
101 | |
102 | This specifies that you want Perldoc to try using a Pod-formatting |
103 | class for the output format that you specify. For example: |
104 | C<-oman>. This is actually just a wrapper around the C<-M> switch; |
105 | using C<-oI<formatname>> just looks for a loadable class by adding |
106 | that format name (with different capitalizations) to the end of |
107 | different classname prefixes. |
108 | |
109 | For example, C<-oLaTeX> currently tries all of the following classes: |
110 | Pod::Perldoc::ToLaTeX Pod::Perldoc::Tolatex Pod::Perldoc::ToLatex |
111 | Pod::Perldoc::ToLATEX Pod::Simple::LaTeX Pod::Simple::latex |
112 | Pod::Simple::Latex Pod::Simple::LATEX Pod::LaTeX Pod::latex Pod::Latex |
113 | Pod::LATEX. |
114 | |
115 | =item B<-M> I<module-name> |
116 | |
117 | This specifies the module that you want to try using for formatting the |
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118 | pod. The class must at least provide a C<parse_from_file> method. |
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119 | For example: C<perldoc -MPod::Perldoc::ToChecker>. |
120 | |
121 | You can specify several classes to try by joining them with commas |
122 | or semicolons, as in C<-MTk::SuperPod;Tk::Pod>. |
123 | |
124 | =item B<-w> I<option:value> or B<-w> I<option> |
125 | |
126 | This specifies an option to call the formatter B<w>ith. For example, |
127 | C<-w textsize:15> will call |
128 | C<< $formatter->textsize(15) >> on the formatter object before it is |
129 | used to format the object. For this to be valid, the formatter class |
130 | must provide such a method, and the value you pass should be valid. |
131 | (So if C<textsize> expects an integer, and you do C<-w textsize:big>, |
132 | expect trouble.) |
133 | |
134 | You can use C<-w optionname> (without a value) as shorthand for |
135 | C<-w optionname:I<TRUE>>. This is presumably useful in cases of on/off |
136 | features like: C<-w page_numbering>. |
137 | |
138 | You can use a "=" instead of the ":", as in: C<-w textsize=15>. This |
139 | might be more (or less) convenient, depending on what shell you use. |
140 | |
141 | =item B<-X> |
142 | |
143 | Use an index if it is present -- the B<-X> option looks for an entry |
144 | whose basename matches the name given on the command line in the file |
145 | C<$Config{archlib}/pod.idx>. The F<pod.idx> file should contain fully |
146 | qualified filenames, one per line. |
147 | |
148 | =item B<PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName> |
149 | |
150 | The item you want to look up. Nested modules (such as C<File::Basename>) |
151 | are specified either as C<File::Basename> or C<File/Basename>. You may also |
152 | give a descriptive name of a page, such as C<perlfunc>. |
153 | |
154 | =item B<-n> I<some-formatter> |
155 | |
156 | Specify replacement for nroff |
157 | |
158 | =item B<-r> |
159 | |
160 | Recursive search. |
161 | |
162 | =item B<-i> |
163 | |
164 | Ignore case. |
165 | |
166 | =item B<-V> |
167 | |
168 | Displays the version of perldoc you're running. |
169 | |
170 | =back |
171 | |
172 | |
173 | |
174 | =head1 SECURITY |
175 | |
176 | Because B<perldoc> does not run properly tainted, and is known to |
177 | have security issues, when run as the superuser it will attempt to |
178 | drop privileges by setting the effective and real IDs to nobody's |
179 | or nouser's account, or -2 if unavailable. If it cannot relinquish |
180 | its privileges, it will not run. |
181 | |
182 | |
183 | =head1 ENVIRONMENT |
184 | |
185 | Any switches in the C<PERLDOC> environment variable will be used before the |
186 | command line arguments. |
187 | |
188 | Useful values for C<PERLDOC> include C<-oman>, C<-otext>, C<-otk>, C<-ortf>, |
189 | C<-oxml>, and so on, depending on what modules you have on hand; or |
190 | exactly specify the formatter class with C<-MPod::Perldoc::ToMan> |
191 | or the like. |
192 | |
193 | C<perldoc> also searches directories |
194 | specified by the C<PERL5LIB> (or C<PERLLIB> if C<PERL5LIB> is not |
195 | defined) and C<PATH> environment variables. |
196 | (The latter is so that embedded pods for executables, such as |
197 | C<perldoc> itself, are available.) |
198 | |
199 | C<perldoc> will use, in order of preference, the pager defined in |
200 | C<PERLDOC_PAGER>, C<MANPAGER>, or C<PAGER> before trying to find a pager |
201 | on its own. (C<MANPAGER> is not used if C<perldoc> was told to display |
202 | plain text or unformatted pod.) |
203 | |
204 | One useful value for C<PERLDOC_PAGER> is C<less -+C -E>. |
205 | |
206 | Having PERLDOCDEBUG set to a positive integer will make perldoc emit |
207 | even more descriptive output than the C<-v> switch does -- the higher the |
208 | number, the more it emits. |
209 | |
210 | =head1 AUTHOR |
211 | |
212 | Current maintainer: Sean M. Burke, <sburke@cpan.org> |
213 | |
214 | Past contributors are: |
215 | Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds@kjahds.com>, |
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216 | Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, |
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217 | and many others. |
218 | |
219 | =cut |
220 | |