POD2MDOC(1) BSD General Commands Manual POD2MDOC(1)NAMEpod2mdoc — Convert POD data to mdoc input
SYNOPSIS
pod2man [-chloqruv] [-d date] [-n title] [-s section] [file]
DESCRIPTION
The pod2mdoc utility reads file and generates mdoc(7) input from
perlpod(1) source. If unspecified or -, file is taken to be standard
input. Its arguments are as follows:
-chloqruv
For compatibility with pod2man(1). Ignored.
-d date
Set the document date (‘Dd’) to date (preferrably in "Month Day,
Year" format). If unspecified or if date is the literal string
Mdocdate, pod2mdoc uses the file modification date or the current
date if reading from standard input. If date is the literal
string Mdocdate, pod2mdoc prepends "$Mdocdate:" to the date and
appends a dollar sign, producing the format used by OpenBSD
cvs(1).
-n title
Set the document title (‘Dt’) to title. If unspecified, pod2mdoc
uses the suffix-stripped filename part of file as a document
title or STDIN if reading from standard input (you probably don't
want that).
-s section
Set the document section (‘Dt’) to section. If unspecified,
pod2mdoc uses 1 or, if the input file suffix is .pm, uses 3p.
Smarts
Since mdoc(7) is semantic and perlpod(1) is not, pod2mdoc tries to figure
out semantic context for some terms. Specifically, within each paragraph
of the SYNOPSIS section, the following occur:
· If any number of #include <foo.h> lines are found at the start of a
verbatim paragraph, they're rendered with ‘In’.
· Other lines starting with ‘#’ are rendered with ‘Fd’.
· Function declarations are rendered with ‘Ft’, ‘Fo’, and ‘Fa’.
· An initial B<> format code is rendered as ‘Nm’.
· Subsequent B<> format codes are rendered as ‘Ar’. However, if the
leading character of a B<> format code is ‘-’, it is rendered as
‘Fl’. Subsequent space-separated terms without leading hyphens,
e.g., B<-foo bar>, are rendered as ‘Ar’.
· Matching [ and ] pairs are rendered as ‘Oo’ and ‘Oc’.
Thus, the input B<foo> [B<-bar baz>] is rendered as follows:
.Nm foo
.Oo
.Fl bar Ar baz
.Oc
In the NAME section, ‘Nm’ and ‘Nd’ macros are inferred from text leading
and trailing the last hyphen followed by a space (there may be any number
of hyphens preceding the space). The space may occur on either side of
the hyphen. Thus, B<foo> - bar will be rendered as follows:
.Nm foo
.Nd bar
Multiple names separated by a comma are properly handled.
In any section, the L<> format code is considered a ‘Lk’ link if begin‐
ning with http:, https:, ftp:, sftp:, smb:, or afs:. If beginning with
mailto:, it is considered a ‘Mt’ link. Otherwise, it is considered a
‘Xr’ manpage in section 3P if containing double-colons or section 1 oth‐
erwise. The section may be overriden as L<foo(5)>. If only a section
appears, such as in </section>, the link is rendered with ‘Sx’.
Words followed by "()" that match function names listed in the SYNOPSIS
section are marked up with ‘Fn’. If they don't match, they are marked up
with ‘Xr’. Words not followed by "()" that match preprocessor macros
#define'd in the SYNOPSIS section are marked up with ‘Dv’.
If the contents of a B<> or I<> format code matches a type name mentioned
in the SYNOPSIS section, it is rendered as ‘Vt’. If it matches a func‐
tion argument name mentioned there, it is rendered as ‘Fa’.
EXIT STATUS
The pod2mdoc utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
EXAMPLES
To pipe a POD document foo.pod through mandoc(1) and a pager:
% pod2mdoc foo.pod | mandoc | more
COMPATIBILITY
If -s is not specified and the suffix for file is .pm, pod2mdoc infers a
manual section of 3p, not 3 as stipulated in perlpod(1). Furthermore,
all links in the format of L<Foo::Bar> are assumed to be in section 3p.
If pod2mdoc encounters an =item without the necessary =over, it will pre‐
tend that a prior =over was invoked. However, it will do so silently and
not, as pod2man(1) does, append a POD ERRORS section in the output man‐
page saying so.
SEE ALSOperlpod(1), pod2man(1), mdoc(7)AUTHORSpod2mdoc was written by Kristaps Dzonsons ⟨kristaps@bsd.lv⟩.
CAVEATS
By way of being a presentational language, POD is not well-represented by
mdoc(7). Semantic content must be inferred and may be wrong.
pod2mdoc only supports the named E<xxx> escapes. HTML names and numbers
are silently discarded.
Although most white-space requests in character encodings are properly
carried to output, adjacent character escapes with the specific white‐
space sequence "B<2>B< 3>" will cause the second space to be lost.
The S<> escape is discarded.
Unless solely a section link, the text and section parts of
L<text|link/section> are discarded.
BSD April 29, 2024 BSD
