POD::SIMPLE::SIMPLETREE(3pm)

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay bestie, welcome to Pod::Simple::SimpleTree(3pm) from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide — this page is literally about parsing Pod into a simple parse tree. 💅

Pod::Simple::SimpleTree -- parse Pod into a simple parse tree.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

okay so picture this: you've got a tiny Pod file, ptest.pod, and you wanna see the tree it turns into. The example does exactly that:

         % cat ptest.pod

         =head1 PIE

         I like B<pie>!

         % perl -MPod::Simple::SimpleTree -MData::Dumper -e \
            "print Dumper(Pod::Simple::SimpleTree->new->parse_file(shift)->root)" \
            ptest.pod

         $VAR1 = [
                   'Document',
                   { 'start_line' => 1 },
                   [
                     'head1',
                     { 'start_line' => 1 },
                     'PIE'
                   ],
                   [
                     'Para',
                     { 'start_line' => 3 },
                     'I like ',
                     [
                       'B',
                       {},
                       'pie'
                     ],
                     '!'
                   ]
                 ];

---

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

This class is of interest to people writing a Pod processor/formatter. That's the whole vibe. It takes Pod and parses it, returning a parse tree made just of arrayrefs, and hashrefs, and strings. (Yes, that exact trio. no cap.)

This is a subclass of Pod::Simple and inherits all its methods. So all the base-class magic is still there, bestie. ✨

This class is inspired by XML::Parser's "Tree" parsing-style, although it doesn't use exactly the same LoL format. iykyk.

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🦋 METHODS 🦋

At the end of the parse, call $parser->root to get the tree's top node. That's your main character. 👑

🌿 Tree Contents 🌿

Every element node in the parse tree is represented by an arrayref of the form: [ elementname, \%attributes, ...subnodes... ]. See the example tree dump in the Synopsis, above. (It's the $VAR1 situation.)

Every text node in the tree is represented by a simple (non-ref) string scalar. So you can test ref($node) to see whether you have an element node or just a text node. Cute, right? 💅

The top node in the tree is [ 'Document', \%attributes, ...subnodes... ]

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• Pod::Simple
• perllol
• The "Tree" subsubsection in XML::Parser

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🫶 SUPPORT 🫶

Questions or discussion about POD and Pod::Simple should be sent to the pod-people@perl.org mail list. Send an empty email to pod-people-subscribe@perl.org to subscribe. 💌

This module is managed in an open GitHub repository, <https://github.com/perl-pod/pod-simple/>. Feel free to fork and contribute, or to clone <https://github.com/perl-pod/pod-simple.git> and send patches! 🎀

Patches against Pod::Simple are welcome. Please send bug reports to <bug-pod-simple@rt.cpan.org>. 🙈

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👑 COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMERS 👑

Copyright (c) 2002 Sean M. Burke.

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

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

Pod::Simple was created by Sean M. Burke <sburke@cpan.org>. But don't bother him, he's retired. 😭

Pod::Simple is maintained by:

• Allison Randal "allison@perl.org"
• Hans Dieter Pearcey "hdp@cpan.org"
• David E. Wheeler "dwheeler@cpan.org"

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💖 and that's the whole page, bestie! this one is Pod::Simple::SimpleTree(3pm) from perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-11-03 — go forth and parse those Pods. slay! ✨