perldoc(3)

📦
version 3.28.01 · 4 versions
, in centos-stream 9

💅 perldoc(3) — like, the whole manual page, but make it make sense

okay so bestie, welcome to perldoc, the Perl documentation looker-upper ✨ this whole page is literally the user-contributed Perl documentation for the perldoc command, and I'm about to walk you through every single bit of it. grab a boba 🧋

✨ NAME ✨

perldoc — Look up Perl documentation in Pod format. that's it. that's the vibe 💖

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

perldoc [-h] [-D] [-t] [-u] [-m] [-l] [-U] [-F]
    [-i] [-V] [-T] [-r]
    [-d destination_file]
    [-o formatname]
    [-M FormatterClassName]
    [-w formatteroption:value]
    [-n nroff-replacement]
    [-X]
    [-L language_code]
    PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName|URL

Examples, bestie — look at these, they're giving cheat sheet 👑

perldoc -f BuiltinFunction

perldoc -L it -f BuiltinFunction

perldoc -q FAQ Keyword

perldoc -L fr -q FAQ Keyword

perldoc -v PerlVariable

perldoc -a PerlAPI

See below for more description of the switches. (like, keep reading, I promise it's worth it 🫶)

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so perldoc goes looking for documentation in .pod format — that's the stuff embedded in the perl installation tree or sitting inside a perl script — and then it displays it using a whole variety of formatters. it's primarily used for the documentation for the perl library modules. main character energy honestly 👑

ngl, your system may also have man pages installed for those modules, in which case you can probably just use the man(1) command. slay, options 💅

and if you're looking for a table of contents to the Perl library modules documentation, see the perltoc page. iconic cross-reference, we love to see it ✨

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

okay this is the big one, buckle up, we're going through all of them.

  • -h — Prints out a brief help message. quick little hello, we stan a humble flag 💖
  • -D — Describes search for the item in detail. literally narrates the hunt 🔍
  • -t — Display docs using plain text converter, instead of nroff. This may be faster, but it probably won't look as nice. fast > pretty, sometimes 😭
  • -u — Skip the real Pod formatting, and just show the raw Pod source (Unformatted). raw and unfiltered, no cap 💀
  • -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 display. it's giving "fine, I'll read the source myself" 🙈
  • -l — Display only the file name of the module found. just the name, nothing else, minimal queen 🎀
  • -U — When running as the superuser, don't attempt drop privileges for security. This option is implied with -F.
NOTE: Please see the heading SECURITY below for more information. ⚠️ fr fr go read it, it's important
  • -F — Consider arguments as file names; no search in directories will be performed. Implies -U if run as the superuser. like, just take my word for the path bestie 🗂️
  • -f perlfunc — The -f option followed by the name of a perl built-in function will extract the documentation of this function from perlfunc.

Example:

perldoc -f sprintf
  • -q perlfaq-search-regexp — The -q option takes a regular expression as an argument. It will search the question headings in perlfaq[1-9] and print the entries matching the regular expression.

Example:

perldoc -q shuffle
  • -a perlapifunc — The -a option followed by the name of a perl api function will extract the documentation of this function from perlapi.

Example:

perldoc -a newHV
  • -v perlvar — The -v option followed by the name of a Perl predefined variable will extract the documentation of this variable from perlvar.

Examples:

perldoc -v '$"'
perldoc -v @+
perldoc -v DATA
  • -T — This specifies that the output is not to be sent to a pager, but is to be sent directly to STDOUT. straight to your eyeballs, no middleman 👀
  • -d destination-filename — This specifies that the output is to be sent neither to a pager nor to STDOUT, but is to be saved to the specified filename. Example: "perldoc -oLaTeX -dtextwrapdocs.tex Text::Wrap" — save it for later, we love a keepsake 💾
  • -o output-formatname — This specifies that you want Perldoc to try using a Pod-formatting class for the output format that you specify. For example: -oman. This is actually just a wrapper around the -M switch; using -oformatname just looks for a loadable class by adding that format name (with different capitalizations) to the end of different classname prefixes.

For example, -oLaTeX currently tries all of the following classes: Pod::Perldoc::ToLaTeX Pod::Perldoc::Tolatex Pod::Perldoc::ToLatex Pod::Perldoc::ToLATEX Pod::Simple::LaTeX Pod::Simple::latex Pod::Simple::Latex Pod::Simple::LATEX Pod::LaTeX Pod::latex Pod::Latex Pod::LATEX. like, it's trying every capitalization combo until something hits 💅

  • -M module-name — This specifies the module that you want to try using for formatting the pod. The class must at least provide a "parse_from_file" method. For example: "perldoc -MPod::Perldoc::ToChecker".

You can specify several classes to try by joining them with commas or semicolons, as in "-MTk::SuperPod;Tk::Pod". multi-class slay ✨

  • -w option:value or -w option — This specifies an option to call the formatter with. For example, "-w textsize:15" will call "$formatter->textsize(15)" on the formatter object before it is used to format the object. For this to be valid, the formatter class must provide such a method, and the value you pass should be valid. (So if "textsize" expects an integer, and you do "-w textsize:big", expect trouble.) 😭 you've been warned

You can use "-w optionname" (without a value) as shorthand for "-w optionname:TRUE". This is presumably useful in cases of on/off features like: "-w page_numbering".

You can use an "=" instead of the ":", as in: "-w textsize=15". This might be more (or less) convenient, depending on what shell you use. pick your fighter 🥊

  • -X — Use an index if it is present. The -X option looks for an 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. index girlies rise 🗂️✨
  • -L language_code — This allows one to specify the language code for the desired language translation. If the "POD2::<language_code>" package isn't installed in your system, the switch is ignored. All available translation packages are to be found under the "POD2::" namespace. See POD2::IT (or POD2::FR) to see how to create new localized "POD2::*" documentation packages and integrate them into Pod::Perldoc. international icon 🌍💖
  • PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName|URL — 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 "perlfunc". For URLs, HTTP and HTTPS are the only kind currently supported.

For simple names like 'foo', when the normal search fails to find a matching page, a search with the "perl" prefix is tried as well. So "perldoc intro" is enough to find/render "perlintro.pod". the fallback is lowkey genius 🧠✨

  • -n some-formatter — Specify replacement for groff. swap out the formatter, we're improvising 💅
  • -r — Recursive search. go deep, bestie 🌀
  • -i — Ignore case. IDC about your caps 🎀
  • -V — Displays the version of perldoc you're running. who am I? what am I? 🪞

🔥 SECURITY 🔥

okay so this part is serious, listen up. Because perldoc does not run properly tainted, and is known to have security issues, when run as the superuser it will attempt to drop privileges by setting the effective and real IDs to nobody's or nouser's account, or -2 if unavailable. If it cannot relinquish its privileges, it will not run. like, it will literally refuse 💀

See the -U option if you do not want this behavior but beware that there are significant security risks if you choose to use -U. not to be dramatic but 🚨

Since 3.26, using -F as the superuser also implies -U as opening most files and traversing directories requires privileges that are above the nobody/nogroup level. so like, that's just how it is now 😭

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

Any switches in the "PERLDOC" environment variable will be used before the command line arguments. they get first dibs ✨

Useful values for "PERLDOC" include "-oterm", "-otext", "-ortf", "-oxml", and so on, depending on what modules you have on hand; or the formatter class may be specified exactly with "-MPod::Perldoc::ToTerm" or the like.

"perldoc" also searches directories specified by the "PERL5LIB" (or "PERLLIB" if "PERL5LIB" is not defined) and "PATH" environment variables. (The latter is so that embedded pods for executables, such as "perldoc" itself, are available.) it's literally searching for itself, meta 🪞

In directories where either "Makefile.PL" or "Build.PL" exist, "perldoc" will add "." and "lib" first to its search path, and as long as you're not the superuser will add "blib" too. This is really helpful if you're working inside of a build directory and want to read through the docs even if you have a version of a module previously installed. build-dir besties we won 🎉

"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 unformatted pod.) order matters, respect the hierarchy 👑

When using perldoc in it's "-m" mode (display module source code), "perldoc" will attempt to use the pager set in "PERLDOC_SRC_PAGER". A useful setting for this command is your favorite editor as in "/usr/bin/nano". (Don't judge me.) 🙈 honestly valid

One useful value for "PERLDOC_PAGER" is "less -+C -E". note it, screenshot it, whatever 📸

Having PERLDOCDEBUG set to a positive integer will make perldoc emit even more descriptive output than the "-D" switch does; the higher the number, the more it emits. turn it up to eleven 🔊

🦋 CHANGES 🦋

Up to 3.14_05, the switch -v was used to produce verbose messages of perldoc operation, which is now enabled by -D. so if you're reading ancient lore, that's why 📜

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

perlpod, Pod::Perldoc — go read those too, they're linked for a reason 🫶

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Current maintainer: Mark Allen "<mallen@cpan.org>"

Past contributors are: brian d foy "<bdfoy@cpan.org>" Adriano R. Ferreira "<ferreira@cpan.org>", Sean M. Burke "<sburke@cpan.org>", Kenneth Albanowski "<kjahds@kjahds.com>", Andy Dougherty "<doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>", and many others. legends only, every single one 👑🌸

and that's the whole page bestie!! 💖 this was perl v5.32.1, dated 2021-08-09, and it's the perldoc(3) page — mwah, go read some docs, you're gonna slay ✨🎀🦋

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