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1 | |
2 | =head1 NAME | |
3 | ||
4 | perldoc - Look up Perl documentation in Pod format. | |
5 | ||
6 | =head1 SYNOPSIS | |
7 | ||
91a46224 | 8 | B<perldoc> [B<-h>] [B<-D>] [B<-t>] [B<-u>] [B<-m>] [B<-l>] [B<-F>] |
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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>] | |
faceb03c | 16 | [B<-L> I<language_code>] |
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17 | PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName |
18 | ||
19 | B<perldoc> B<-f> BuiltinFunction | |
20 | ||
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21 | B<perldoc> B<-L> it B<-f> BuiltinFunction |
22 | ||
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23 | B<perldoc> B<-q> FAQ Keyword |
24 | ||
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25 | B<perldoc> B<-L> fr B<-q> FAQ Keyword |
26 | ||
91a46224 AF |
27 | B<perldoc> B<-v> PerlVariable |
28 | ||
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29 | See below for more description of the switches. |
30 | ||
31 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
32 | ||
33 | I<perldoc> looks up a piece of documentation in .pod format that is embedded | |
34 | in the perl installation tree or in a perl script, and displays it via | |
35 | C<pod2man | nroff -man | $PAGER>. (In addition, if running under HP-UX, | |
36 | C<col -x> will be used.) This is primarily used for the documentation for | |
37 | the perl library modules. | |
38 | ||
39 | Your system may also have man pages installed for those modules, in | |
40 | which case you can probably just use the man(1) command. | |
41 | ||
42 | If you are looking for a table of contents to the Perl library modules | |
43 | documentation, see the L<perltoc> page. | |
44 | ||
45 | =head1 OPTIONS | |
46 | ||
47 | =over 5 | |
48 | ||
49 | =item B<-h> | |
50 | ||
51 | Prints out a brief B<h>elp message. | |
52 | ||
91a46224 | 53 | =item B<-D> |
1a67fee7 | 54 | |
91a46224 | 55 | B<D>escribes search for the item in B<d>etail. |
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56 | |
57 | =item B<-t> | |
58 | ||
59 | Display docs using plain B<t>ext converter, instead of nroff. This may be faster, | |
60 | but it probably won't look as nice. | |
61 | ||
62 | =item B<-u> | |
63 | ||
64 | Skip the real Pod formatting, and just show the raw Pod source (B<U>nformatted) | |
65 | ||
66 | =item B<-m> I<module> | |
67 | ||
68 | Display the entire module: both code and unformatted pod documentation. | |
69 | This may be useful if the docs don't explain a function in the detail | |
70 | you need, and you'd like to inspect the code directly; perldoc will find | |
71 | the file for you and simply hand it off for display. | |
72 | ||
73 | =item B<-l> | |
74 | ||
75 | Display onB<l>y the file name of the module found. | |
76 | ||
77 | =item B<-F> | |
78 | ||
79 | Consider arguments as file names; no search in directories will be performed. | |
80 | ||
81 | =item B<-f> I<perlfunc> | |
82 | ||
909f2da2 | 83 | The B<-f> option followed by the name of a perl built-in function will |
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84 | extract the documentation of this function from L<perlfunc>. |
85 | ||
86 | Example: | |
87 | ||
88 | perldoc -f sprintf | |
89 | ||
91a46224 | 90 | |
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91 | =item B<-q> I<perlfaq-search-regexp> |
92 | ||
93 | The B<-q> option takes a regular expression as an argument. It will search | |
94 | the B<q>uestion headings in perlfaq[1-9] and print the entries matching | |
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95 | the regular expression. |
96 | ||
97 | Example: | |
98 | ||
99 | perldoc -q shuffle | |
100 | ||
101 | ||
102 | =item B<-v> I<perlvar> | |
103 | ||
104 | The B<-v> option followed by the name of a Perl predefined variable will | |
105 | extract the documentation of this variable from L<perlvar>. | |
106 | ||
107 | Examples: | |
108 | ||
109 | perldoc -v '$"' | |
110 | perldoc -v @+ | |
111 | perldoc -v DATA | |
112 | ||
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113 | |
114 | =item B<-T> | |
115 | ||
116 | This specifies that the output is not to be sent to a pager, but is to | |
117 | be sent right to STDOUT. | |
118 | ||
119 | =item B<-d> I<destination-filename> | |
120 | ||
121 | This specifies that the output is to be sent neither to a pager nor | |
122 | to STDOUT, but is to be saved to the specified filename. Example: | |
123 | C<perldoc -oLaTeX -dtextwrapdocs.tex Text::Wrap> | |
124 | ||
125 | =item B<-o> I<output-formatname> | |
126 | ||
127 | This specifies that you want Perldoc to try using a Pod-formatting | |
128 | class for the output format that you specify. For example: | |
129 | C<-oman>. This is actually just a wrapper around the C<-M> switch; | |
130 | using C<-oI<formatname>> just looks for a loadable class by adding | |
131 | that format name (with different capitalizations) to the end of | |
132 | different classname prefixes. | |
133 | ||
134 | For example, C<-oLaTeX> currently tries all of the following classes: | |
135 | Pod::Perldoc::ToLaTeX Pod::Perldoc::Tolatex Pod::Perldoc::ToLatex | |
136 | Pod::Perldoc::ToLATEX Pod::Simple::LaTeX Pod::Simple::latex | |
137 | Pod::Simple::Latex Pod::Simple::LATEX Pod::LaTeX Pod::latex Pod::Latex | |
138 | Pod::LATEX. | |
139 | ||
140 | =item B<-M> I<module-name> | |
141 | ||
142 | This specifies the module that you want to try using for formatting the | |
254c2b64 | 143 | pod. The class must at least provide a C<parse_from_file> method. |
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144 | For example: C<perldoc -MPod::Perldoc::ToChecker>. |
145 | ||
146 | You can specify several classes to try by joining them with commas | |
147 | or semicolons, as in C<-MTk::SuperPod;Tk::Pod>. | |
148 | ||
149 | =item B<-w> I<option:value> or B<-w> I<option> | |
150 | ||
151 | This specifies an option to call the formatter B<w>ith. For example, | |
152 | C<-w textsize:15> will call | |
153 | C<< $formatter->textsize(15) >> on the formatter object before it is | |
154 | used to format the object. For this to be valid, the formatter class | |
155 | must provide such a method, and the value you pass should be valid. | |
156 | (So if C<textsize> expects an integer, and you do C<-w textsize:big>, | |
157 | expect trouble.) | |
158 | ||
159 | You can use C<-w optionname> (without a value) as shorthand for | |
160 | C<-w optionname:I<TRUE>>. This is presumably useful in cases of on/off | |
161 | features like: C<-w page_numbering>. | |
162 | ||
909f2da2 | 163 | You can use an "=" instead of the ":", as in: C<-w textsize=15>. This |
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164 | might be more (or less) convenient, depending on what shell you use. |
165 | ||
166 | =item B<-X> | |
167 | ||
ac036724 | 168 | Use an index if it is present. The B<-X> option looks for an entry |
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169 | whose basename matches the name given on the command line in the file |
170 | C<$Config{archlib}/pod.idx>. The F<pod.idx> file should contain fully | |
171 | qualified filenames, one per line. | |
172 | ||
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173 | =item B<-L> I<language_code> |
174 | ||
909f2da2 FC |
175 | This allows one to specify the I<language code> for the desired language |
176 | translation. If the C<POD2::E<lt>language_codeE<gt>> package isn't | |
177 | installed in your system, the switch is ignored. | |
178 | All available translation packages are to be found under the C<POD2::> | |
179 | namespace. See L<POD2::IT> (or L<POD2::FR>) to see how to create new | |
180 | localized C<POD2::*> documentation packages and integrate them into | |
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181 | L<Pod::Perldoc>. |
182 | ||
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183 | =item B<PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName> |
184 | ||
185 | The item you want to look up. Nested modules (such as C<File::Basename>) | |
186 | are specified either as C<File::Basename> or C<File/Basename>. You may also | |
187 | give a descriptive name of a page, such as C<perlfunc>. | |
188 | ||
91a46224 AF |
189 | For simple names like 'foo', when the normal search fails to find |
190 | a matching page, a search with the "perl" prefix is tried as well. | |
191 | So "perldoc intro" is enough to find/render "perlintro.pod". | |
192 | ||
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193 | =item B<-n> I<some-formatter> |
194 | ||
195 | Specify replacement for nroff | |
196 | ||
197 | =item B<-r> | |
198 | ||
199 | Recursive search. | |
200 | ||
201 | =item B<-i> | |
202 | ||
203 | Ignore case. | |
204 | ||
205 | =item B<-V> | |
206 | ||
207 | Displays the version of perldoc you're running. | |
208 | ||
209 | =back | |
210 | ||
211 | ||
212 | ||
213 | =head1 SECURITY | |
214 | ||
215 | Because B<perldoc> does not run properly tainted, and is known to | |
216 | have security issues, when run as the superuser it will attempt to | |
217 | drop privileges by setting the effective and real IDs to nobody's | |
218 | or nouser's account, or -2 if unavailable. If it cannot relinquish | |
219 | its privileges, it will not run. | |
220 | ||
221 | ||
222 | =head1 ENVIRONMENT | |
223 | ||
224 | Any switches in the C<PERLDOC> environment variable will be used before the | |
225 | command line arguments. | |
226 | ||
227 | Useful values for C<PERLDOC> include C<-oman>, C<-otext>, C<-otk>, C<-ortf>, | |
228 | C<-oxml>, and so on, depending on what modules you have on hand; or | |
909f2da2 | 229 | the formatter class may be specified exactly with C<-MPod::Perldoc::ToMan> |
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230 | or the like. |
231 | ||
232 | C<perldoc> also searches directories | |
233 | specified by the C<PERL5LIB> (or C<PERLLIB> if C<PERL5LIB> is not | |
234 | defined) and C<PATH> environment variables. | |
235 | (The latter is so that embedded pods for executables, such as | |
236 | C<perldoc> itself, are available.) | |
237 | ||
238 | C<perldoc> will use, in order of preference, the pager defined in | |
239 | C<PERLDOC_PAGER>, C<MANPAGER>, or C<PAGER> before trying to find a pager | |
240 | on its own. (C<MANPAGER> is not used if C<perldoc> was told to display | |
241 | plain text or unformatted pod.) | |
242 | ||
243 | One useful value for C<PERLDOC_PAGER> is C<less -+C -E>. | |
244 | ||
245 | Having PERLDOCDEBUG set to a positive integer will make perldoc emit | |
ac036724 | 246 | even more descriptive output than the C<-v> switch does; the higher the |
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247 | number, the more it emits. |
248 | ||
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249 | |
250 | =head1 CHANGES | |
251 | ||
252 | Up to 3.14_05, the switch B<-v> was used to produce verbose | |
253 | messages of B<perldoc> operation, which is now enabled by B<-D>. | |
254 | ||
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255 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
256 | ||
257 | L<perlpod>, L<Pod::Perldoc> | |
91a46224 | 258 | |
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259 | =head1 AUTHOR |
260 | ||
91a46224 | 261 | Current maintainer: Adriano R. Ferreira <ferreira@cpan.org> |
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262 | |
263 | Past contributors are: | |
91a46224 | 264 | Sean M. Burke <sburke@cpan.org>, |
1a67fee7 | 265 | Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds@kjahds.com>, |
537c2f98 | 266 | Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, |
1a67fee7 HS |
267 | and many others. |
268 | ||
269 | =cut | |
270 |