oracular (3) POD2::Base.3pm.gz
NAME
POD2::Base - Base module for translations of Perl documentation
SYNOPSIS
use POD2::Base;
$pod2 = POD2::Base->new({ lang => 'EO' });
@dirs = $pod2->pod_dirs;
$re = $pod2->search_perlfunc_re;
DESCRIPTION
This module is an abstraction of the code in POD2::IT and POD2::FR. These modules belong to the Italian
and the French translation projects of core Perl pods.
Once a translation package had been installed, the translated documentation can be accessed with:
$ perldoc POD2::<lang>::<podname>
(where <lang> is a language abbreviation like IT, FR, TLH, etc.)
This is guaranteed to work even for older versions of perldoc. It is not very convenient but always
works.
To improve the support to read translated docs, the perldoc utility (since version 3.14_01) was updated
to find translated PODs via:
$ perldoc -L IT <podpage>
$ perldoc -L FR -f <function>
$ perldoc -L TH -q <FAQregex>
(Note: this support was shipped together with the recently released 5.10.0 version the Perl interpreter.)
The objective of this class is to provide a minimum base to help "perldoc" and authors of translation
packages to do their job.
SUBCLASSING
If you want to write a translation package (and have some customization needs), your work may be
diminished if you subclass "Pod::Base".
For example, a minimum example is provided below:
package POD2::TLH; # Klingon
use POD2::Base;
our @ISA = qw( POD2::Base );
sub search_perlfunc_re { # makes 'perldoc -f' work
return 'Klingon Listing of Perl Functions';
}
1;
And then
$ perldoc -L tlh perlintro
will present you the introduction of Perl in Klingon language (provided a POD2/TLH/perlintro.pod file was
shipped together with POD2/TLH.pm) and
$ perldoc -L tlh -f pack
will find you the Klingon documentation of "pack" (if POD2/TLH/perlfunc.pod was made available as well).
METHODS
This module has been made into a proper class with a very small API.
new
$pod2 = POD2::Base->new(\%args);
$pod2 = POD2::ANY->new();
The constructor. An actual call might look like this:
$pod2 = POD2::Base->new({ lang => 'tlh' });
where the supported options are:
• "lang"
Specifies the language code we're interested in. This is required, but can be extracted from the
name of a subclass. Read below.
• "inc"
This is used to override the list of Perl library directories where POD documents are searched
(namely, @INC). Most of the time, you don't want to mess with that. It's handy for debugging and
testing.
It must be an array ref.
If "POD2::ANY" is a subclass of "POD2::Base", the inherited constructor will work without arguments
pulling 'ANY' from the package name and using it as the intented language code.
Note that use of "inc" in the constructor freezes the list of library dirs searched by the
"POD2::Base" instance. If this is not used, the up-to-date @INC is used at each call of "pod_dirs"
(so that dynamic changes in the Perl library path are taken into account). That's what we meant with
the "Most of the time, you don't want to mess with that" mentioned above.
pod_dirs
@dirs = $pod2->pod_dirs;
@dirs = $pod2->pod_dirs(\%options);
Used by "Pod::Perldoc" to find out where to look for translated pods.
The "POD2::Base" default behavior is to find POD2/<lang>/ directories under the current Perl library
directories (@INC) or the list given as argument "inc" in the constructor.
The supported options are:
• "test"
By default, the return of "pod_dirs" do not include POD directories which do not exist (tested
with "-d"). If an explicit false value for this option (like "test => 0") is given, such test is
not done and "pod_dirs" includes all possible candidates POD2/<lang>/ under the library
directories. (Handy for debugging this module. Not much practical use for anything else.)
search_perlfunc_re
$re = $pod2->search_perlfunc_re;
To implement "perldoc -f <function>" the current code of "Pod::Perldoc" uses a hard coded string
"Alphabetical Listing of Perl Functions" or the return of this method (in a regexp) to skip the
introduction and reach the listing of core functions. Thus a translation package with a
corresponding translated perlfunc.pod should define this method to make "perldoc -L <lang> -f
<function>" work properly.
There are other methods documented below. However, they will probably be superseded in future versions
when more general methods to find and display metadata on translated PODs are designed and implemented.
pod_info
$hashref = $pod2->pod_info;
Used by "POD2::Base" itself. The return contains some metadata on the translated PODs which is used
by the methods "print_pod" and "print_pods".
When subclassing, you should override this with the current information on what POD translations the
current package is providing.
print_pods
$pod2->print_pods;
Prints all translated pods and the corresponding Perl version of the original files.
print_pod
$pod2->print_pod(@pages);
$pod2->print_pod(); # uses @ARGV
Prints the corresponding Perl version of the original files corresponding to the pods passed as
arguments.
EXAMPLES
POD2::TLH
A slightly extended version of "POD2::TLH" goes like this:
package POD2::TLH; # Klingon
use POD2::Base;
our @ISA = qw( POD2::Base );
sub search_perlfunc_re {
return 'Klingon Listing of Perl Functions';
}
sub pod_info {
return { perlintro => '5.8.8' };
}
1;
And you may try:
use POD2::TLH;
my $pod2 = 'POD2::TLH';
$pod2->print_pods();
$pod2->print_pod('pod_foo', 'pod_baz', ...);
THE INSTALLED FILES
If you want to find out which language-specific POD files are installed at your Perl, you could use a
code similar to this.
use File::Find;
use POD2::Base;
my $pod2 = POD2::Base->new({ lang => $lang });
my @files;
find sub { push @files, $File::Find::name } if -f },
$pod2->pod_dirs;
print "$_\n" for @files;
In the "POD2-Base" distribution tarball, a script eg/list.pl is included with an improved version of this
code.
The rules of finding POD in .pod, .pm files and others belong to Pod::Perldoc. So "POD2::Base" do not try
to repeat them here.
AUTHORS
Enrico Sorcinelli <bepi at perl.it> (the original POD2::IT code)
Adriano Ferreira <ferreira at cpan.org>
SEE ALSO
POD2::IT, POD2::FR, POD2::LT, POD2::CN, perldoc, perl.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE
Copyright (C) 2004-2006 Perl.it / Perl Mongers Italia
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
itself.