PERLDOC(C)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide      PERLDOC(C)



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(n) 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 perlfunc.

       -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 v2.03.

AUTHOR
       Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds@kjahds.com>

       Minor updates by Andy Dougherty <doughera@laf-
       col.lafayette.edu>, and others.



perl v5.6.1                 2002-11-30                 PERLDOC(C)