Pod::Tidy - a reformatting Pod Processor

    use Pod::Tidy qw( tidy_files tidy_filehandle );

    my $processed = Pod::Tidy::tidy_files(
        files       => \@list,
        ignore      => [qr/foo/, qr/bar/],
        recursive   => $recursive,
        verbose     => $verbose,
        inplace     => $inplace,
        nobackup    => $nobackup,
        columns     => $columns,
    );

    Pod::Tidy::tidy_filehandle($input);

This module provides the heavy lifting needed by the podtidy utility although the API should be general enough that it can be used directly.

This module accepts no arguments to it's import method and exports no symbols.

* tidy_files( ... )

Accepts a mandatory hash.

    my $processed = Pod::Tidy::tidy_files(
        files       => \@list,
        ignore      => [qr/foo/, qr/bar/],
        recursive   => $recursive,
        verbose     => $verbose,
        inplace     => $inplace,
        nobackup    => $nobackup,
        columns     => $columns,
    );

* files

An array ref to a list of files and/or directories.

* ignore

An array ref to regex objects that are used to reject files and/or directories. Each pattern is tried for a match against (in order) the absolute file path, the relative file path (canonical), and the basename. In the case of directories, the "basename" is considered to be the right most path component. For example, the "basename" of /foo/bar/baz/ would be to be baz.

This key is optional.

* recursive

Accepts undef, 0, or 1. If set to 1 any directories provided to the files key will be recursively expanded. Defaults to undef

This key is optional.

* verbose

Accepts undef, 0, or 1. 1 enables verbose warnings. Defaults to undef.

This key is optional.

* inplace

Accepts undef, 0, or 1. 1 enables in place reformatting of files. Updated files will be backed up unless the nobackup key is set. The mtime of the file is guarenteed not to be changed unless formating changes did occur. Defaults to undef.

This key is optional.

* nobackup

Accepts undef, 0, or 1. If set to 1 files being reformatted in place will not be backed up. Defaults to undef.

This key is optional.

* columns

Accepts any number. Sets the line width of the reformatted pod. Defaults to 76 (Text::Wrap's default).

This key is optional.

Before processing a file it is checked for:

* correct access permissions

* containing Pod

* legal Pod syntax

Any file failing to meet those criteria will not be processed.

Returns a count of processed files or undef if no files could be processed.

* tidy_filehandle($input)

Accepts an open filehandle. Data from the filehandle is processed as it is read so this subroutine can be used to filter large amounts of data. Because of this behavior the input can not be checked in advance to verify a) That it's actually Pod and b) that the Pod document uses only valid Pod syntax. Output is set to STDOUT. Returns nothing.

These subroutines are not exportable.

* backup_file

* base

* build_pod_queue

* process_pod_queue

* valid_pod_syntax

The tidy_files() subroutine does a number of highly inefficient things. Each file is opened and closed at least 3 different times as it is passed through a number of different modules to see if it meets the processing criteria. This shouldn't be a major performance issue with an modern OS's VM subsystem but it still leaves much to be desired. When doing inplace file reformatting a complete copy of the original file and the updated file and held in memory for comparison. Thus you are limited to reformatting Pod documents < ( available_system_memory / 2 ).

Due to a bug in the version of contains_pod in Pod::Find bundled with Pod::Parser 1.33, Pod containing files will not be detected if the only =[foo]N directive is on the first line of the file. For example:

    =head1 foo

    foobarbaz

    =cut

Would not be detected unless there was a newline before =head1 foo. See CPAN bug #14871 for a patch to correct Pod::Find. This should be fixed in version 1.34 of Pod::Parser

Unfortunately, the perldoc utility doesn't follow perlpodspec for what it considers a verbatim block. As far as perldoc is concerned, any line that begins with whitespace is in a verbatim block. While the Pod spec requires that all blocks are separated by a blank line.

Consider this example:

    =head1 What Would Brian Boitano Do?

    What would Brian Boitano do
    If he was here right now?
    He'd make a plan and he'd follow through
    That's what Brian Boitano'd do
        When Brian Boitano was in the olympics
        Skating for the gold
        He'd do sound cows and a triple relux
        wearin a blindfold

    =cut

perldoc incorrectly considers the second paragraph to be indented and would display it as one might be expecting. However, podtidy would turn it into this:

    =head1 What Would Brian Boitano Do?

    What would Brian Boitano do If he was here right now?  He'd make a plan and
    he'd follow through That's what Brian Boitano'd do     When Brian Boitano was
    in the olympics     Skating for the gold     He'd do sound cows and a triple
    relux     wearin a blindfold

    =cut

If a single blank line is added between the two paragraphs as required by perlpodspec, the original document would look like this:

    =head1 What Would Brian Boitano Do?

    What would Brian Boitano do
    If he was here right now?
    He'd make a plan and he'd follow through
    That's what Brian Boitano'd do

        When Brian Boitano was in the olympics
        Skating for the gold
        He'd do sound cows and a triple relux
        wearin a blindfold

    =cut

Then the result from podtidy would be nice and... well... tidy.

    =head1 What Would Brian Boitano Do?

    What would Brian Boitano do If he was here right now? He'd make a plan and he'd
    follow through That's what Brian Boitano'd do

        When Brian Boitano was in the olympics
        Skating for the gold
        He'd do sound cows and a triple relux
        wearin a blindfold

    =cut

Larry Denneau denneau@ifa.hawaii.edu reported test failures caused by Module::Build stripping the execute bit from scripts/podtidy.

Grant McLean grant@mclean.net.nz caught a grammatical error in the documentation.

Michael Cartmell Michael.Cartmell@thomson.com provided some grammatical corrections and a patch to fix Pod::Tidy::build_pod_queue() tests on Win32, reporting test failures on Win32 caused by differing newline encodings, and reporting CPANPLUS playing badly with Module::Build's build_requires.

Hanno Hecker <vetinari@ankh-morp.org> provided a patch to allow the column width to specified in both the Pod::Tidy library and podtidy utility.

Please contact the author directly via e-mail.

Joshua Hoblitt jhoblitt@cpan.org

Copyright (c) 2005 Joshua Hoblitt. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The full text of the licenses can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module, or in perlartistic and perlgpl Pods as supplied with Perl 5.8.1 and later.

podtidy, Pod::Wrap::Pretty, podwrap, Pod::Wrap, Perl::Tidy