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PERLPODSTYLE(1)                          User Contributed Perl Documentation                          PERLPODSTYLE(1)



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


           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

       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

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 <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>.

AUTHOR
       Russ Allbery <[email protected]>, 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 Russ Allbery <[email protected]>.

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



perl v5.16.3                                          2010-10-11                                      PERLPODSTYLE(1)