Pod::PlainText is a module that can convert documentation in the POD format (the
preferred language for documenting Perl) into formatted ASCII. It uses no
special formatting controls or codes whatsoever, and its output is therefore
suitable for nearly any device.
As a derived class from Pod::Parser, Pod::PlainText supports the same methods and
interfaces. See the Pod::Parser manpage for all the details; briefly, one creates a
new parser with Pod::PlainText->new() and then calls either
parse_from_filehandle() or parse_from_file().
new() can take options, in the form of key/value pairs, that control the
behavior of the parser. The currently recognized options are:
If set to a true value, selects an alternate output format that, among other
things, uses a different heading style and marks =item entries with a
colon in the left margin. Defaults to false.
If set to a true value, a blank line is printed after a =head1 heading.
If set to false (the default), no blank line is printed after =head1,
although one is still printed after =head2. This is the default because
it's the expected formatting for manual pages; if you're formatting
arbitrary text documents, setting this to true may result in more pleasing
output.
If set to a true value, Pod::PlainText will assume that each sentence ends in two
spaces, and will try to preserve that spacing. If set to false, all
consecutive whitespace in non-verbatim paragraphs is compressed into a
single space. Defaults to true.
The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side. Defaults to 76.
The standard Pod::Parser method parse_from_filehandle() takes up to two
arguments, the first being the file handle to read POD from and the second
being the file handle to write the formatted output to. The first defaults
to STDIN if not given, and the second defaults to STDOUT. The method
parse_from_file() is almost identical, except that its two arguments are the
input and output disk files instead. See the Pod::Parser manpage for the specific
details.
This is a replacement for an earlier Pod::Text module written by Tom
Christiansen. It has a revamped interface, since it now uses Pod::Parser,
but an interface roughly compatible with the old Pod::Text::pod2text()
function is still available. Please change to the new calling convention,
though.
The original Pod::Text contained code to do formatting via termcap
sequences, although it wasn't turned on by default and it was problematic to
get it to work at all. This rewrite doesn't even try to do that, but a
subclass of it does. Look for Pod::Text::Termcap.
