POD2USAGE(1) | Perl Programmers Reference Guide | POD2USAGE(1)

# NAME

pod2usage - print usage messages from embedded pod docs in files

# SYNOPSIS

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

# OPTIONS AND ARGUMENTS

-help
  Print a brief help message and exit.
-man
  Print this command's manual page and exit.
-exit exitval
  The exit status value to return.
-output outfile
  The output file to print to. If the special names "-" or ">&1" or ">&STDOUT" are used then standard output is used. If ">&2" or ">&STDERR" is used then standard error is used.
-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).
-formatter module
  Which text formatter to use. Default is Pod::Text, or for very old Perl versions Pod::PlainText. An alternative would be e.g. Pod::Text::Termcap.
-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.

# 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.

pod2usage invokes the pod2usage() function in the Pod::Usage module. Please see "pod2usage()" in Pod::Usage.

# SEE ALSO

Pod::Usage, pod2text, Pod::Text, Pod::Text::Termcap, perldoc

# 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>

2025-10-12 | perl v5.40.1