POD2USAGE(1)

okay bestie, this is POD2USAGE(1) straight out of the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, and it’s the manual page for pod2usage — a whole command dedicated to printing usage messages from embedded pod docs in files. it’s giving practical, polished, and slightly iconic. 💅✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

pod2usage — print usage messages from embedded pod docs in files. that’s the whole assignment, no notes. 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pod2usage   [-help] [-man] [-exit exitval] [-output outfile] [-verbose
            level] [-pathlist dirlist] [-formatter module] [-utf8] file

🎀 OPTIONS AND ARGUMENTS 🎀

okay now the flags, bestie — every single one is important, so don’t skip the little guys. 🫶

• -help — prints a brief help message and exit. short, sweet, helpful. 🎀
• -man — prints this command’s manual page and exit. yes, it can show you its own manual page. main character behavior, honestly. 👑
• -exit exitval — the exit status value to return. that’s exitval, literally the value that goes out the door with you. 💅
• -output outfile — the output file to print to. the special names - or >&1 or >&STDOUT mean standard output is used. >&2 or >&STDERR mean standard error is used. know the vibe before you redirect. 🔥
• -verbose level — the desired level of verbosity to use:
  • 1 : print SYNOPSIS only
  • 2 : print SYNOPSIS sections and any OPTIONS/ARGUMENTS sections
  • 3 : print the entire manpage (similar to running pod2text)
• -pathlist dirlist — specifies one or more directories to search for the input file if it was not supplied with an absolute path. each directory path in the given list should be separated by a ':' on Unix (';' on MSWin32 and DOS). path separator lore, iykyk. 🧚
• -formatter module — which text formatter to use. default is Pod::Text. an alternative would be e.g. Pod::Text::Termcap. formatter choices are a whole mood. 🌈
• -utf8 — this option assumes that the formatter (see above) understands the option "utf8". it turns on generation of utf8 output. ✨
• file — the pathname of a file containing pod documentation to be output in usage message format. if omitted, standard input is read — but the output is then formatted with Pod::Text only — unless a specific formatter has been specified with -formatter. important little caveat, bestie. 🫶

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

pod2usage will read the given input file looking for pod documentation and will print the corresponding usage message. if no input file is specified then standard input is read. that’s the flow. 🦋

pod2usage invokes the pod2usage() function in the Pod::Usage module. please see "pod2usage()" in Pod::Usage. the lore is right there. 📚

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

go peek at Pod::Usage, pod2text, Pod::Text, Pod::Text::Termcap, and perldoc. the whole friend group is linked up. 💖

🌸 AUTHOR 🌸

please report bugs using http://rt.cpan.org.

Brad Appleton <bradapp@enteract.com>

Based on code for pod2text(1) written by Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>.

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that’s the whole page, bestie — source/version perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-11-03, filed under POD2USAGE(1) 🫶💖