#!/import/bw/tools/local/perl-5.8.0/bin/perl
eval 'exec /import/bw/tools/local/perl-5.8.0/bin/perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}'
# make sure creat()s are neither too much nor too little
INIT { eval { umask(0077) } } # doubtless someone has no mask
(my $pager = <<'/../') =~ s/\s*\z//;
push @pagers, $pager if -x $pager;
(my $bindir = <<'/../') =~ s/\s*\z//;
/import/bw/tools/local/perl-5.8.0/bin
(my $pod2man = <<'/../') =~ s/\s*\z//;
use File::Spec::Functions qw(catfile splitdir);
# Perldoc revision #1 -- look up a piece of documentation in .pod format that
# is embedded in the perl installation tree.
# This is not to be confused with Tom Christiansen's perlman, which is a
# man replacement, written in perl. This perldoc is strictly for reading
# the perl manuals, though it too is written in perl.
# Massive security and correctness patches applied to this
# noisome program by Tom Christiansen Sat Mar 11 15:22:33 MST 2000
my $me = $0; # Editing $0 is unportable
Usage: $me [-h] [-r] [-i] [-v] [-t] [-u] [-m] [-n program] [-l] [-F] [-X] PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName
The -h option prints more help. Also try "perldoc perldoc" to get
acquainted with the system.
my $Is_VMS = $^O eq 'VMS';
my $Is_MSWin32 = $^O eq 'MSWin32';
my $Is_Dos = $^O eq 'dos';
my $Is_OS2 = $^O eq 'os2';
# Erase evidence of previous errors (if any), so exit status is simple.
perldoc [options] PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName...
perldoc [options] -f BuiltinFunction
perldoc [options] -q FAQRegex
-h Display this help message
-r Recursive search (slow)
-t Display pod using pod2text instead of pod2man and nroff
(-t is the default on win32)
-u Display unformatted pod text
-m Display module's file in its entirety
-n Specify replacement for nroff
-l Display the module's file name
-F Arguments are file names, not modules
-v Verbosely describe what's going on
-X use index if present (looks for pod.idx at $Config{archlib})
-q Search the text of questions (not answers) in perlfaq[1-9]
-U Run in insecure mode (superuser only)
is the name of a piece of documentation that you want to look at. You
may either give a descriptive name of the page (as in the case of
`perlfunc') the name of a module, either like `Term::Info' or like
`Term/Info', or the name of a program, like `perldoc'.
is the name of a perl function. Will extract documentation from
is a regex. Will search perlfaq[1-9] for and extract any
Any switches in the PERLDOC environment variable will be used before the
command line arguments. The optional pod index file contains a list of
if (defined $ENV{"PERLDOC"}) {
require Text::ParseWords;
unshift(@ARGV, Text::ParseWords::shellwords($ENV{"PERLDOC"}));
use vars qw( $opt_m $opt_h $opt_t $opt_l $opt_u $opt_v $opt_r $opt_i $opt_F $opt_f $opt_X $opt_q $opt_n $opt_U );
getopts("mhtluvriFf:Xq:n:U") || usage;
# refuse to run if we should be tainting and aren't
# (but regular users deserve protection too, though!)
if (!($Is_VMS || $Is_MSWin32 || $Is_Dos || $Is_OS2) && ($> == 0 || $< == 0)
my $id = eval { getpwnam("nobody") };
$id = eval { getpwnam("nouser") } unless defined $id;
$id = -2 unless defined $id;
# According to Stevens' APUE and various
# (BSD, Solaris, HP-UX) man pages setting
# the real uid first and effective uid second
# is the way to go if one wants to drop privileges,
# because if one changes into an effective uid of
# non-zero, one cannot change the real uid any more.
# Actually, it gets even messier. There is
# a third uid, called the saved uid, and as
# long as that is zero, one can get back to
# uid of zero. Setting the real-effective *twice*
# helps in *most* systems (FreeBSD and Solaris)
# but apparently in HP-UX even this doesn't help:
# the saved uid stays zero (apparently the only way
# in HP-UX to change saved uid is to call setuid()
# when the effective uid is zero).
$> = $id; # effective uid
$> = $id; # effective uid
die "Superuser must not run $0 without security audit and taint checks.\n";
$opt_n = "nroff" if !$opt_n;
$podidx = "$Config{'archlib'}/pod.idx";
$podidx = "" unless -f $podidx && -r _ && -M _ <= 7;
if ((my $opts = do{ no warnings; $opt_t + $opt_u + $opt_m + $opt_l }) > 1) {
usage("only one of -t, -u, -m or -l")
|| !($ENV{TERM} && $ENV{TERM} !~ /dumb|emacs|none|unknown/i))
if ($opt_t) { require Pod::Text; import Pod::Text; }
@pages = ("perlfaq1" .. "perlfaq9");
# Does this look like a module or extension directory?
# Add ., lib to @INC (if they exist)
eval q{ use lib qw(. lib); 1; } or die;
if ($< && $> && -f "blib") { # don't be looking too hard now!
return 1 if !$readit && $file =~ /\.pod\z/i;
open(TEST,"<", $file) or die "Can't open $file: $!";
close(TEST) or die "Can't close $file: $!";
close(TEST) or die "Can't close $file: $!";
my $path = catfile($dir,$file);
return $path if -f $path and -r _;
if (!$opt_i or $Is_VMS or $Is_MSWin32 or $Is_Dos or $^O eq 'os2') {
# on a case-forgiving file system or if case is important
# that is it all we can do
warn "Ignored $path: unreadable\n" if -f _;
# this is completely wicked. don't mess with $", and if
# you do, don't assume / is the dirsep!
foreach $p (splitdir $file){
my $try = catfile @p, $p;
if ( $p eq $global_target) {
my $tmp_path = catfile @p;
$path_f = 1 if $_ eq $tmp_path;
push (@global_found, $tmp_path) unless $path_f;
print STDERR "Found as @p but directory\n" if $opt_v;
warn "Ignored $try: unreadable\n";
opendir DIR, "@p" or die "opendir @p: $!";
while ($cip=readdir(DIR)) {
closedir DIR or die "closedir @p: $!";
return "@p" if -f "@p" and -r _;
warn "Ignored @p: unreadable\n" if -f _;
return "" if length $dir and not -d $dir;
return minus_f_nocase($dir,$file);
my $path = minus_f_nocase($dir,$file);
return $path if length $path and containspod($path);
my($recurse,$s,@dirs) = @_;
$s = VMS::Filespec::unixify($s) if $Is_VMS;
return $s if -f $s && containspod($s);
printf STDERR "Looking for $s in @dirs\n" if $opt_v;
$global_target = (splitdir $s)[-1]; # XXX: why not use File::Basename?
for ($i=0; $i<@dirs; $i++) {
($dir = VMS::Filespec::unixpath($dir)) =~ s!/\z!! if $Is_VMS;
if ( (! $opt_m && ( $ret = check_file $dir,"$s.pod"))
or ( $ret = check_file $dir,"$s.pm")
or ( $ret = check_file $dir,$s)
$ret = check_file $dir,"$s.com")
$ret = check_file $dir,"$s.cmd")
or ( ($Is_MSWin32 or $Is_Dos or $^O eq 'os2') and
$ret = check_file $dir,"$s.bat")
or ( $ret = check_file "$dir/pod","$s.pod")
or ( $ret = check_file "$dir/pod",$s)
or ( $ret = check_file "$dir/pods","$s.pod")
or ( $ret = check_file "$dir/pods",$s)
opendir(D,$dir) or die "Can't opendir $dir: $!";
my @newdirs = map catfile($dir, $_), grep {
not /^auto\z/s and # save time! don't search auto dirs
closedir(D) or die "Can't closedir $dir: $!";
@newdirs = map((s/\.dir\z//,$_)[1],@newdirs) if $Is_VMS;
print STDERR "Also looking in @newdirs\n" if $opt_v;
my @data = split /\n{2,}/, shift;
shift @data while @data and $data[0] !~ /\S/; # Go to header
shift @data if @data and $data[0] =~ /Contributed\s+Perl/; # Skip header
pop @data if @data and $data[-1] =~ /^\w/; # Skip footer, like
# 28/Jan/99 perl 5.005, patch 53 1
my ($tmp, $no_tty, @pagers) = @_;
open(TMP,"<", $tmp) or die "Can't open $tmp: $!";
print or die "Can't print to stdout: $!";
close TMP or die "Can't close while $tmp: $!";
# On VMS, quoting prevents logical expansion, and temp files with no
# extension get the wrong default extension (such as .LIS for TYPE)
$tmp = VMS::Filespec::rmsexpand($tmp, '.') if ($Is_VMS);
foreach my $pager (@pagers) {
last if system("$pager $tmp") == 0;
last if system("$pager \"$tmp\"") == 0;
if ($podidx && open(PODIDX, $podidx)) {
my $searchfor = catfile split '::';
print STDERR "Searching for '$searchfor' in $podidx\n" if $opt_v;
push(@found, $_) if m,/$searchfor(?:\.(?:pod|pm))?\z,i;
close(PODIDX) or die "Can't close $podidx: $!";
print STDERR "Searching for $_\n" if $opt_v;
push @found, $_ if $opt_m or containspod($_);
# We must look both in @INC for library modules and in $bindir
# for executables, like h2xs or perldoc itself.
my @searchdirs = ($bindir, @INC);
for ($i = 0; $trn = $ENV{'DCL$PATH;'.$i}; $i++) {
push(@searchdirs,'perl_root:[lib.pod]') # installed pods
push(@searchdirs, grep(-d, split($Config{path_sep},
my @files = searchfor(0,$_,@searchdirs);
print STDERR "Found as @files\n" if $opt_v;
# no match, try recursive search
@searchdirs = grep(!/^\.\z/s,@INC);
@files= searchfor(1,$_,@searchdirs) if $opt_r;
print STDERR "Loosely found as @files\n" if $opt_v;
($opt_m ? "module" : "documentation") . " found for \"$_\".\n";
print STDERR "However, try\n";
for my $dir (@global_found) {
opendir(DIR, $dir) or die "opendir $dir: $!";
while (my $file = readdir(DIR)) {
next if ($file =~ /^\./s);
$file =~ s/\.(pm|pod)\z//; # XXX: badfs
print STDERR "\tperldoc $_\::$file\n";
closedir DIR or die "closedir $dir: $!";
exit ($Is_VMS ? 98962 : 1);
print join("\n", @found), "\n";
my $lines = $ENV{LINES} || 24;
if (! -t STDOUT) { $no_tty = 1 }
END { close(STDOUT) || die "Can't close STDOUT: $!" }
push @pagers, qw( more< less notepad );
unshift @pagers, $ENV{PAGER} if $ENV{PAGER};
for (@found) { s,/,\\,g }
push @pagers, qw( most more less type/page );
push @pagers, qw( less.exe more.com< );
unshift @pagers, $ENV{PAGER} if $ENV{PAGER};
unshift @pagers, 'less', 'cmd /c more <';
push @pagers, qw( more less pg view cat );
unshift @pagers, $ENV{PAGER} if $ENV{PAGER};
unshift @pagers, $ENV{PERLDOC_PAGER} if $ENV{PERLDOC_PAGER};
foreach my $pager (@pagers) {
if (system($pager, @found) == 0) {
use vmsish qw(status exit);
my $perlfunc = shift @found;
open(PFUNC, "<", $perlfunc)
or die("Can't open $perlfunc: $!");
# Functions like -r, -e, etc. are listed under `-X'.
my $search_string = ($opt_f =~ /^-[rwxoRWXOeszfdlpSbctugkTBMAC]$/)
last if /^=head2 Alphabetical Listing of Perl Functions/;
if (/^=item\s+\Q$search_string\E\b/o) {
last if $found > 1 and not $inlist;
++$found if /^\w/; # found descriptive text
die "No documentation for perl function `$opt_f' found\n";
close PFUNC or die "Can't open $perlfunc: $!";
local @ARGV = @found; # I'm lazy, sue me.
my $rx = eval { qr/$opt_q/ } or die <<EOD;
Invalid regular expression '$opt_q' given as -q pattern:
for (@found) { die "invalid file spec: $!" if /[<>|]/ }
if (/^=head2\s+.*(?:$opt_q)/oi) {
push @pod, "=head1 Found in $ARGV\n\n" unless $found_in{$ARGV}++;
die("No documentation for perl FAQ keyword `$opt_q' found\n");
my ($tmpfd, $tmp) = File::Temp::tempfile(UNLINK => 1);
my ($buffd, $buffer) = File::Temp::tempfile(UNLINK => 1);
print $buffd "=over 8\n\n";
print $buffd @pod or die "Can't print $buffer: $!";
close $buffd or die "Can't close $buffer: $!";
Pod::Text->new()->parse_from_file($file, $tmpfd);
my $cmd = catfile($bindir, $pod2man) . " --lax $file | $opt_n -man";
$cmd .= " | col -x" if $^O =~ /hpux/;
$rslt = filter_nroff($rslt) if $filter;
or die "Can't print $tmp: $!";
open(IN,"<", $file) or die("Can't open $file: $!");
$cut = $1 eq 'cut' if /^=(\w+)/;
or die "Can't print $tmp: $!";
close IN or die "Can't close $file: $!";
or die "Can't close $tmp: $!";
page($tmp, $no_tty, @pagers);
my $nada = substr($arg, 0, 0); # zero-length
local $@; # preserve caller's version
perldoc - Look up Perl documentation in pod format.
B<perldoc> [B<-h>] [B<-v>] [B<-t>] [B<-u>] [B<-m>] [B<-l>] [B<-F>] [B<-X>] PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName
B<perldoc> B<-f> BuiltinFunction
B<perldoc> B<-q> FAQ Keyword
I<perldoc> looks up a piece of documentation in .pod format that is embedded
in the perl installation tree or in a perl script, and displays it via
C<pod2man | nroff -man | $PAGER>. (In addition, if running under HP-UX,
C<col -x> will be used.) This is primarily used for the documentation for
the perl library modules.
Your system may also have man pages installed for those modules, in
which case you can probably just use the man(1) command.
If you are looking for a table of contents to the Perl library modules
documentation, see the L<perltoc> page.
Prints out a brief help message.
Describes search for the item in detail.
Display docs using plain text converter, instead of nroff. This may be faster,
but it won't look as nice.
Find docs only; skip reformatting by pod2*
Display the entire module: both code and unformatted pod documentation.
This may be useful if the docs don't explain a function in the detail
you need, and you'd like to inspect the code directly; perldoc will find
the file for you and simply hand it off for display.
=item B<-l> file name only
Display the file name of the module found.
Consider arguments as file names, no search in directories will be performed.
The B<-f> option followed by the name of a perl built in function will
extract the documentation of this function from L<perlfunc>.
The B<-q> option takes a regular expression as an argument. It will search
the question headings in perlfaq[1-9] and print the entries matching
=item B<-X> use an index if present
The B<-X> option looks for an entry whose basename matches the name given on the
command line in the file C<$Config{archlib}/pod.idx>. The pod.idx file should
contain fully qualified filenames, one per line.
=item B<-U> run insecurely
Because B<perldoc> does not run properly tainted, and is known to
have security issues, it will not normally execute as the superuser.
If you use the B<-U> flag, it will do so, but only after 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
=item B<PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName>
The item you want to look up. Nested modules (such as C<File::Basename>)
are specified either as C<File::Basename> or C<File/Basename>. You may also
give a descriptive name of a page, such as C<perlfunc>.
Any switches in the C<PERLDOC> environment variable will be used before the
command line arguments. C<perldoc> also searches directories
specified by the C<PERL5LIB> (or C<PERLLIB> if C<PERL5LIB> is not
defined) and C<PATH> environment variables.
(The latter is so that embedded pods for executables, such as
C<perldoc> itself, are available.) C<perldoc> will use, in order of
preference, the pager defined in C<PERLDOC_PAGER>, C<MANPAGER>, or
C<PAGER> before trying to find a pager on its own. (C<MANPAGER> is not
used if C<perldoc> was told to display plain text or unformatted pod.)
One useful value for C<PERLDOC_PAGER> is C<less -+C -E>.
Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds@kjahds.com>
Minor updates by Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>,
# Version 2.03: Sun Apr 23 16:56:34 BST 2000
# Hugo van der Sanden <hv@crypt0.demon.co.uk>
# don't die when 'use blib' fails
# Version 2.02: Mon Mar 13 18:03:04 MST 2000
# Tom Christiansen <tchrist@perl.com>
# Added -U insecurity option
# Version 2.01: Sat Mar 11 15:22:33 MST 2000
# Tom Christiansen <tchrist@perl.com>, querulously.
# Security and correctness patches.
# What a twisted bit of distasteful spaghetti code.
# Version 1.15: Tue Aug 24 01:50:20 EST 1999
# Charles Wilson <cwilson@ece.gatech.edu>
# changed /pod/ directory to /pods/ for cygwin
# to support cygwin/win32
# Version 1.14: Wed Jul 15 01:50:20 EST 1998
# Robin Barker <rmb1@cise.npl.co.uk>
# Version 1.13: Fri Feb 27 16:20:50 EST 1997
# Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>
# -doc tweaks for -F and -X options
# Version 1.12: Sat Apr 12 22:41:09 EST 1997
# Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>
# -various fixes for win32
# Version 1.11: Tue Dec 26 09:54:33 EST 1995
# Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds@kjahds.com>
# -added Charles Bailey's further VMS patches, and -u switch
# -added -t switch, with pod2text support
# Version 1.10: Thu Nov 9 07:23:47 EST 1995
# Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds@kjahds.com>
# -added better error recognition (on no found pages, just exit. On
# missing nroff/pod2man, just display raw pod.)
# -added recursive/case-insensitive matching (thanks, Andreas). This
# slows things down a bit, unfortunately. Give a precise name, and
# Version 1.01: Tue May 30 14:47:34 EDT 1995
# Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>
# -added pod documentation.
# -added searching pod/ subdirectory (mainly to pick up perlfunc.pod
# Cache directories read during sloppy match