NAME

       perlpodstyle - Perl POD style guide

DESCRIPTION

       These are general guidelines for how to write POD documentation for Perl scripts and modules, based on
       general guidelines for writing good UNIX man pages.  All of these guidelines are, of course, optional,
       but following them will make your documentation more consistent with other documentation on the system.

       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<>).  Function names 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)" or "L<manpage(section)>", and Pod::Man will automatically format those appropriately.
       The second form, with L<>, is used to request that a POD formatter make a link to the man page if
       possible.  As an exception, one normally omits the section when referring to module documentation since
       it's not clear what section module documentation will be in; use "L<Module::Name>" for module references
       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.  References to other programs that are
       not given as man page references should be enclosed in B<>.

       The major headers should be set out using a "=head1" directive, and are historically written in the
       rather startling ALL UPPER CASE format; this is not mandatory, but it's strongly recommended so that
       sections have consistent naming across different software packages.  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 POD
           page, 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.  Every program or function documented by this POD page should be
           listed, separated by a comma and a space.  For a Perl module, just give the module name.  A single
           dash, and only a single dash, should separate the list of programs or functions from the description.
           Do not use any markup such as C<> or B<> anywhere in this line.  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.
           For Perl module documentation, it's usually convenient to have the contents of this section be a
           verbatim block showing some (brief) examples of typical ways the module is used.

       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.

           For a module, this is generally where the documentation of the interfaces provided by the module
           goes, usually in the form of a list with an "=item" for each interface.  Depending on how many
           interfaces there are, you may want to put that documentation in separate METHODS, FUNCTIONS, CLASS
           METHODS, or INSTANCE METHODS sections instead and save the DESCRIPTION section for an overview.

       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 parsers 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 recommended because it's easier to read.  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 and non-zero on failure as is
           standard.  It should always be present for functions.  For modules, it may be useful to summarize
           return values from the module interface here, or it may be more useful to discuss return values
           separately in the documentation of each function or method the module provides.

       ERRORS
           Exceptions, error return codes, exit statuses, and errno settings.  Typically used for function or
           module 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.

       AUTHOR
           Who wrote it (use AUTHORS for multiple people).  It's a good idea to include your current e-mail
           address (or some e-mail address to which bug reports should be sent) or some other contact
           information so that users have a way of contacting you.  Remember that program documentation tends to
           roam the wild for far longer than you expect and pick a contact method that's likely to last.

       HISTORY
           Programs derived from other sources sometimes have this.  Some people keep a modification log here,
           but that usually gets long and is normally better maintained in a separate file.

       COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
           For copyright

               Copyright YEAR(s) YOUR NAME(s)

           (No, (C) is not needed.  No, "all rights reserved" is not needed.)

           For licensing the easiest way is to use the same licensing as Perl itself:

               This library is free software; you may redistribute it and/or
               modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

           This makes it easy for people to use your module with Perl.  Note that this licensing example is
           neither an endorsement or a requirement, you are of course free to choose any licensing.

       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<> (although
           it's recommended), but other things in this section probably should be when appropriate.

           If the package has a mailing list, include a URL or subscription instructions here.

           If the package has a web site, include a URL here.

       Documentation of object-oriented libraries or modules may want to use CONSTRUCTORS and METHODS sections,
       or CLASS METHODS and INSTANCE METHODS sections, for detailed documentation of the parts of the library
       and save the DESCRIPTION section for an overview.  Large modules with a function interface may want to
       use FUNCTIONS for similar reasons.  Some people use OVERVIEW to summarize the description if it's quite
       long.

       Section ordering varies, although NAME must 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.

       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.

       Finally, as a general note, try not to use an excessive amount of markup.  As documented here and in
       Pod::Man, 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 will do the wrong thing with e-mail
       addresses when wrapped in L<>, so don't do that.

AUTHOR

       Russ Allbery <rra@cpan.org>, with large portions of this documentation taken from the documentation of
       the original pod2man implementation by Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2015, 2018 Russ Allbery <rra@cpan.org>

       Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without
       royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.  This file is offered as-is, without
       any warranty.

       SPDX-License-Identifier: FSFAP

SEE ALSO

       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.

       This documentation is maintained as part of the podlators distribution.  The current version is always
       available from its web site at <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>.