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NAME

       Pod::Checker, podchecker() - check pod documents for syntax errors


SYNOPSIS

         use Pod::Checker;

         $syntax_okay = podchecker($filepath, $outputpath, %options);

         my $checker = new Pod::Checker %options;
         $checker->parse_from_file($filepath, \*STDERR);


OPTIONS/ARGUMENTS

       $filepath is the input POD to read and $outputpath is where to write
       POD syntax error messages. Either argument may be a scalar indicating a
       file-path, or else a reference to an open filehandle.  If unspecified,
       the input-file it defaults to "\*STDIN", and the output-file defaults
       to "\*STDERR".

       podchecker()

       This function can take a hash of options:

       -warnings => val
           Turn warnings on/off. val is usually 1 for on, but higher values
           trigger additional warnings. See "Warnings".


DESCRIPTION

       podchecker will perform syntax checking of Perl5 POD format documenta-
       tion.

       Curious/ambitious users are welcome to propose additional features they
       wish to see in Pod::Checker and podchecker and verify that the checks
       are consistent with perlpod.

       The following checks are currently performed:

       o   Unknown '=xxxx' commands, unknown 'X<...>' interior-sequences, and
           unterminated interior sequences.

       o   Check for proper balancing of "=begin" and "=end". The contents of
           such a block are generally ignored, i.e. no syntax checks are per-
           formed.

       o   Check for proper nesting and balancing of "=over", "=item" and
           "=back".

       o   Check for same nested interior-sequences (e.g.  "L<...L<...>...>").

       o   Check for malformed or nonexisting entities "E<...>".

       o   Check for correct syntax of hyperlinks "L<...>". See perlpod for
           details.

       o   Check for unresolved document-internal links. This check may also
           reveal misspelled links that seem to be internal links but should
           be links to something else.


DIAGNOSTICS

       Errors

       * empty =headn
           A heading ("=head1" or "=head2") without any text? That ain't no
           heading!

       * =over on line N without closing =back
           The "=over" command does not have a corresponding "=back" before
           the next heading ("=head1" or "=head2") or the end of the file.

       * =item without previous =over
       * =back without previous =over
           An "=item" or "=back" command has been found outside a
           "=over"/"=back" block.

       * No argument for =begin
           A "=begin" command was found that is not followed by the formatter
           specification.

       * =end without =begin
           A standalone "=end" command was found.

       * Nested =begin's
           There were at least two consecutive "=begin" commands without the
           corresponding "=end". Only one "=begin" may be active at a time.

       * =for without formatter specification
           There is no specification of the formatter after the "=for" com-
           mand.

       * unresolved internal link NAME
           The given link to NAME does not have a matching node in the current
           POD. This also happend when a single word node name is not enclosed
           in "".

       * Unknown command "CMD"
           An invalid POD command has been found. Valid are "=head1",
           "=head2", "=head3", "=head4", "=over", "=item", "=back", "=begin",
           "=end", "=for", "=pod", "=cut"

       * Unknown interior-sequence "SEQ"
           An invalid markup command has been encountered. Valid are: "B<>",
           "C<>", "E<>", "F<>", "I<>", "L<>", "S<>", "X<>", "Z<>"

       * nested commands CMD<...CMD<...>...>
           Two nested identical markup commands have been found. Generally
           this does not make sense.

       * garbled entity STRING
           The STRING found cannot be interpreted as a character entity.

       * Entity number out of range
           An entity specified by number (dec, hex, oct) is out of range
           (1-255).

       * malformed link L<>
           The link found cannot be parsed because it does not conform to the
           syntax described in perlpod.

       * nonempty Z<>
           The "Z<>" sequence is supposed to be empty.

       * empty X<>
           The index entry specified contains nothing but whitespace.

       * Spurious text after =pod / =cut
           The commands "=pod" and "=cut" do not take any arguments.

       * Spurious character(s) after =back
           The "=back" command does not take any arguments.

       Warnings

       These may not necessarily cause trouble, but indicate mediocre style.

       * multiple occurrence of link target name
           The POD file has some "=item" and/or "=head" commands that have the
           same text. Potential hyperlinks to such a text cannot be unique
           then.  This warning is printed only with warning level greater than
           one.

       * line containing nothing but whitespace in paragraph
           There is some whitespace on a seemingly empty line. POD is very
           sensitive to such things, so this is flagged. vi users switch on
           the list option to avoid this problem.

       * previous =item has no contents
           There is a list "=item" right above the flagged line that has no
           text contents. You probably want to delete empty items.

       * preceding non-item paragraph(s)
           A list introduced by "=over" starts with a text or verbatim para-
           graph, but continues with "=item"s. Move the non-item paragraph out
           of the "=over"/"=back" block.

       * =item type mismatch (one vs. two)
           A list started with e.g. a bulletted "=item" and continued with a
           numbered one. This is obviously inconsistent. For most translators
           the type of the first "=item" determines the type of the list.

       * N unescaped "<>" in paragraph
           Angle brackets not written as "<lt>" and "<gt>" can potentially
           cause errors as they could be misinterpreted as markup commands.
           This is only printed when the -warnings level is greater than 1.

       * Unknown entity
           A character entity was found that does not belong to the standard
           ISO set or the POD specials "verbar" and "sol".

       * No items in =over
           The list opened with "=over" does not contain any items.

       * No argument for =item
           "=item" without any parameters is deprecated. It should either be
           followed by "*" to indicate an unordered list, by a number (option-
           ally followed by a dot) to indicate an ordered (numbered) list or
           simple text for a definition list.

       * empty section in previous paragraph
           The previous section (introduced by a "=head" command) does not
           contain any text. This usually indicates that something is missing.
           Note: A "=head1" followed immediately by "=head2" does not trigger
           this warning.

       * Verbatim paragraph in NAME section
           The NAME section ("=head1 NAME") should consist of a single para-
           graph with the script/module name, followed by a dash `-' and a
           very short description of what the thing is good for.

       * =headn without preceding higher level
           For example if there is a "=head2" in the POD file prior to a
           "=head1".

       Hyperlinks

       There are some warnings wrt. malformed hyperlinks.

       * ignoring leading/trailing whitespace in link
           There is whitespace at the beginning or the end of the contents of
           L<...>.

       * (section) in '$page' deprecated
           There is a section detected in the page name of L<...>, e.g.
           "L<passwd(2)>". POD hyperlinks may point to POD documents only.
           Please write "C<passwd(2)>" instead. Some formatters are able to
           expand this to appropriate code. For links to (builtin) functions,
           please say "L<perlfunc/mkdir>", without ().

       * alternative text/node '%s' contains non-escaped | or /
           The characters "|" and "/" are special in the L<...> context.
           Although the hyperlink parser does its best to determine which "/"
           is text and which is a delimiter in case of doubt, one ought to
           escape these literal characters like this:

             /     E<sol>
             |     E<verbar>


RETURN VALUE

       podchecker returns the number of POD syntax errors found or -1 if there
       were no POD commands at all found in the file.


EXAMPLES

       See "SYNOPSIS"


INTERFACE

       While checking, this module collects document properties, e.g. the
       nodes for hyperlinks ("=headX", "=item") and index entries ("X<>").
       POD translators can use this feature to syntax-check and get the nodes
       in a first pass before actually starting to convert. This is expensive
       in terms of execution time, but allows for very robust conversions.

       Since PodParser-1.24 the Pod::Checker module uses only the poderror
       method to print errors and warnings. The summary output (e.g.  "Pod
       syntax OK") has been dropped from the module and has been included in
       podchecker (the script). This allows users of Pod::Checker to control
       completely the output behaviour. Users of podchecker (the script) get
       the well-known behaviour.

       "Pod::Checker->new( %options )"
           Return a reference to a new Pod::Checker object that inherits from
           Pod::Parser and is used for calling the required methods later. The
           following options are recognized:

           "-warnings => num"
             Print warnings if "num" is true. The higher the value of "num",
           the more warnings are printed. Currently there are only levels 1
           and 2.

           "-quiet => num"
             If "num" is true, do not print any errors/warnings. This is use-
           ful when Pod::Checker is used to munge POD code into plain text
           from within POD formatters.

       "$checker->poderror( @args )"
       "$checker->poderror( {%opts}, @args )"
           Internal method for printing errors and warnings. If no options are
           given, simply prints "@_". The following options are recognized and
           used to form the output:

             -msg

           A message to print prior to @args.

             -line

           The line number the error occurred in.

             -file

           The file (name) the error occurred in.

             -severity

           The error level, should be 'WARNING' or 'ERROR'.

       "$checker->num_errors()"
           Set (if argument specified) and retrieve the number of errors
           found.

       "$checker->num_warnings()"
           Set (if argument specified) and retrieve the number of warnings
           found.

       "$checker->name()"
           Set (if argument specified) and retrieve the canonical name of POD
           as found in the "=head1 NAME" section.

       "$checker->node()"
           Add (if argument specified) and retrieve the nodes (as defined by
           "=headX" and "=item") of the current POD. The nodes are returned in
           the order of their occurrence. They consist of plain text, each
           piece of whitespace is collapsed to a single blank.

       "$checker->idx()"
           Add (if argument specified) and retrieve the index entries (as
           defined by "X<>") of the current POD. They consist of plain text,
           each piece of whitespace is collapsed to a single blank.

       "$checker->hyperlink()"
           Add (if argument specified) and retrieve the hyperlinks (as defined
           by "L<>") of the current POD. They consist of a 2-item array: line
           number and "Pod::Hyperlink" object.


AUTHOR

       Please report bugs using <http://rt.cpan.org>.

       Brad Appleton <bradapp@enteract.com> (initial version), Marek Rouchal
       <marekr@cpan.org>

       Based on code for PPoodd::::TTeexxtt::::ppoodd22tteexxtt(()) written by Tom Christiansen
       <tchrist@mox.perl.com>

perl v5.8.8                       2006-06-14                   Pod::Checker(3)
See also Pod::Escapes(3)
See also Pod::Find(3)
See also Pod::Html(3)
See also Pod::InputObjects(3)
See also Pod::LaTeX(3)
See also Pod::Man(3)
See also Pod::ParseLink(3)
See also Pod::ParseUtils(3)
See also Pod::Parser(3)
See also Pod::Perldoc::ToChecker(3)
See also Pod::Perldoc::ToMan(3)
See also Pod::Perldoc::ToNroff(3)
See also Pod::Perldoc::ToPod(3)
See also Pod::Perldoc::ToRtf(3)
See also Pod::Perldoc::ToText(3)
See also Pod::Perldoc::ToTk(3)
See also Pod::Perldoc::ToXml(3)
See also Pod::PlainText(3)
See also Pod::Plainer(3)
See also Pod::Readme(3)
See also Pod::Select(3)
See also Pod::Simple(3)
See also Pod::Simple::Checker(3)
See also Pod::Simple::Debug(3)
See also Pod::Simple::DumpAsText(3)
See also Pod::Simple::DumpAsXML(3)
See also Pod::Simple::HTML(3)
See also Pod::Simple::HTMLBatch(3)
See also Pod::Simple::LinkSection(3)
See also Pod::Simple::Methody(3)
See also Pod::Simple::PullParser(3)
See also Pod::Simple::PullParserEndToken(3)
See also Pod::Simple::PullParserStartToken(3)
See also Pod::Simple::PullParserTextToken(3)
See also Pod::Simple::PullParserToken(3)
See also Pod::Simple::RTF(3)
See also Pod::Simple::Search(3)
See also Pod::Simple::SimpleTree(3)
See also Pod::Simple::Subclassing(3)
See also Pod::Simple::Text(3)
See also Pod::Simple::TextContent(3)
See also Pod::Simple::XMLOutStream(3)
See also Pod::Text(3)
See also Pod::Text::Color(3)
See also Pod::Text::Overstrike(3)
See also Pod::Text::Termcap(3)
See also Pod::Usage(3)
See also Test::Pod(3)
See also Test::Pod::Coverage(3)

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