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.
--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 the
Pod::Man manpage 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 references 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 the Pod::Man manpage for
complete information.
OPTIONS
-cstring, --center=string
Sets the centered page header to string. The default is
"User Contributed Perl Documentation", but also see --official below.
-dstring, --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 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
Don't 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.
-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.
DIAGNOSTICS
If pod2man fails with errors, see the Pod::Man manpage and
the Pod::Parser manpage for information 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 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. See the Pod::Man manpage for more details.
BUGS
Lots of this documentation is duplicated from the Pod::Man
manpage.
POD checking and the corresponding --lax option don't work
yet.
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. Arguments 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(section)', 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 single dash, and only a single
dash, should separate the list of programs 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 separated by a comma and a space on the same `=item'
line, or optionally 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 important, 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 documented
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 presented 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 additional 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<>, but other things in this section
probably should be when appropriate. You may need to
use the `L<...|...>' syntax to keep pod2man and pod2text
from being too verbose; see perlpod(1).
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.
HISTORY
Programs derived from other sources sometimes have this,
or you might keep a modification log here.
In addition, some systems use CONFORMING TO to note
conformance to relevant standards and MT-LEVEL to note
safeness for use in threaded programs 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 FUNCTIONS for similar reasons. Some people use
OVERVIEW to summarize the description if it's quite long.
Sometimes there's an additional COPYRIGHT section at the
bottom, for licensing terms. AVAILABILITY is sometimes
added, giving the canonical download site for the software
or a URL for updates.
Section ordering varies, although NAME should always be the
first section (you'll break some man page systems
otherwise), and NAME, SYNOPSIS, 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 the Pod::Man
manpage, 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), troff(1), man(7)
The man page documenting the an macro set may be man(5)
instead of man(7) on your system.
AUTHOR
Russ Allbery <[email protected]>, 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.