perldoc

 

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 PERLDOC(1)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      PERLDOC(1)
 
 
 
NAME
        perldoc - Look up Perl documentation in pod format.
 
SYNOPSIS
        perldoc [-h] [-v] [-t] [-u] [-m] [-l] [-F]  [-X] Page­
        Name|ModuleName|ProgramName
 
        perldoc -f BuiltinFunction
 
        perldoc -q FAQ Keyword
 
DESCRIPTION
        perldoc looks up a piece of documentation in .pod format
        that is embedded in the perl installation tree or in a
        perl script, and displays it via `pod2man | nroff -man |
        $PAGER'. (In addition, if running under HP-UX, `col -x'
        will be used.) This is primarily used for the documenta­
        tion for the perl library modules.
 
        Your system may also have man pages installed for those
        modules, in which case you can probably just use the
        man(1) command.
 
OPTIONS
        -h help
             Prints out a brief help message.
 
        -v verbose
             Describes search for the item in detail.
 
        -t text output
             Display docs using plain text converter, instead of
             nroff. This may be faster, but it won't look as nice.
 
        -u unformatted
             Find docs only; skip reformatting by pod2*
 
        -m module
             Display the entire module: both code and unformatted
             pod documentation.  This may be useful if the docs
             don't explain a function in the detail you need, and
             you'd like to inspect the code directly; perldoc will
             find the file for you and simply hand it off for dis­
             play.
 
        -l file name only
             Display the file name of the module found.
 
        -F file names
             Consider arguments as file names, no search in direc­
             tories will be performed.
 
        -f perlfunc
             The -f option followed by the name of a perl built in
             function will extract the documentation of this func­
             tion from the perlfunc manpage.
 
        -q perlfaq
             The -q option takes a regular expression as an argu­
             ment.  It will search the question headings in perl­
             faq[1-9] and print the entries matching the regular
             expression.
 
        -X use an index if present
             The -X option looks for a entry whose basename
             matches the name given on the command line in the
             file `$Config{archlib}/pod.idx'.  The pod.idx file
             should contain fully qualified filenames, one per
             line.
 
        -U run insecurely
             Because perldoc does not run properly tainted, and is
             known to have security issues, it will not normally
             execute as the superuser.  If you use the -U flag, it
             will do so, but only after setting the effective and
             real IDs to nobody's or nouser's account, or -2 if
             unavailable.  If it cannot relinguish its privileges,
             it will not run.
 
        PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName
             The item you want to look up.  Nested modules (such
             as `File::Basename') are specified either as
             `File::Basename' or `File/Basename'.  You may also
             give a descriptive name of a page, such as `perl­
             func'. You may also give a partial or wrong-case
             name, such as "basename" for "File::Basename", but
             this will be slower, if there is more then one page
             with the same partial name, you will only get the
             first one.
 
 ENVIRONMENT
        Any switches in the `PERLDOC' environment variable will be
        used before the command line arguments.  `perldoc' also
        searches directories specified by the `PERL5LIB' (or `PER­
        LLIB' if `PERL5LIB' is not defined) and `PATH' environment
        variables.  (The latter is so that embedded pods for exe­
        cutables, such as `perldoc' itself, are available.)
        `perldoc' will use, in order of preference, the pager
        defined in `PERLDOC_PAGER', `MANPAGER', or `PAGER' before
        trying to find a pager on its own.  (`MANPAGER' is not
        used if `perldoc' was told to display plain text or unfor­
        matted pod.)
 
        One useful value for `PERLDOC_PAGER' is `less -+C -E'.
 
 VERSION
        This is perldoc v2.01.
 
AUTHOR
        Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds@kjahds.com>
 
        Minor updates by Andy Dougherty <doughera@laf­
        col.lafayette.edu>, and others.
 
 
 
 2001-08-09                 perl v5.6.0                 PERLDOC(1)

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