NAME

Porting/pod_lib.pl - functions for building and installing POD

SYNOPSIS

    require './Porting/pod_lib.pl';

DESCRIPTION

This program, when required into other programs in the Perl 5 core distribution, provides functions useful during building and, secondarily, testing.

As of this writing, the functions in this program are used in these other programs:

    installman
    installperl
    pod/buildtoc
    pod/perl.pod
    Porting/new-perldelta.pl
    Porting/pod_rules.pl

Note: Since these functions are used during the Perl build process, they must work with miniperl. That necessarily implies that these functions must not rely on XS modules, either directly or indirectly (e.g., autodie).

SUBROUTINES

my_die()

• Purpose

  Exit from a process with an error code and a message.

• Arguments

  List of arguments to be passed with the error message. Example:

      close $fh or my_die("close 'utils.lst': $!");

• Return Value

  Exit code 255.

• Comment

  Prints ABORTED to STDERR.

open_or_die()

• Purpose

  Opens a file or fails if it cannot.

• Arguments

  String holding filename to be opened. Example:

      $fh = open_or_die('utils.lst');

• Return Value

  Handle to opened file.

slurp_or_die()

• Purpose

  Read the contents of a file into memory as a single string.

• Arguments

  String holding name of file to be read into memory.

      $olddelta = slurp_or_die('pod/perldelta.pod');

• Return Value

  String holding contents of file.

write_or_die()

• Purpose

  Write out a string to a file.

• Arguments

  List of two arguments: (i) String holding name of file to be written to; (ii) String holding contents to be written.

      write_or_die($olddeltaname, $olddelta);

• Return Value

  Implicitly returns true value upon success.

pods_to_install()

• Purpose

  Create a lookup table holding information about PODs to be installed.

• Arguments

  None.

• Return Value

  Reference to a hash with a structure like this:

      $found = {
        'MODULE' => {
          'CPAN::Bundle' => 'lib/CPAN/Bundle.pm',
          'Locale::Codes::Script_Retired' =>
              'lib/Locale/Codes/Script_Retired.pm',
          'Pod::Simple::DumpAsText' =>
              'lib/Pod/Simple/DumpAsText.pm',
          # ...
          'Locale::Codes::LangVar' =>
              'lib/Locale/Codes/LangVar.pod'
        },
        'PRAGMA' => {
          'fields' => 'lib/fields.pm',
          'subs' => 'lib/subs.pm',
          # ...
        },

• Comment

  Broadly speaking, the function assembles a list of all .pm and .pod files in the distribution and then excludes certain files from installation.

get_pod_metadata()

• Purpose

• Arguments

  List of one or more arguments.

  • Boolean true or false

  • Reference to a suboutine.

  • Various other arguments.

  Example:

      $state = get_pod_metadata(
          0, sub { warn @_ if @_ }, 'pod/perltoc.pod');
  
      get_pod_metadata(
          1, sub { warn @_ if @_ }, values %Build);

• Return Value

  Hash reference; each element provides either a list or a lookup table for information about various types of POD files.

    'aux'             => [ # utility programs like
                              'h2xs' and 'perlbug' ]
    'generated'       => { # lookup table for generated POD files
                              like 'perlapi.pod' }
    'ignore'          => { # lookup table for files to be ignored }
    'pods'            => { # lookup table in "name" =>
                              "short description" format }
    'readmes'         => { # lookup table for OS-specific
                              and other READMEs }
    'delta_version'   => [ # major version number, minor no.,
                              patch no. ]
    'delta_target'    => 'perl<Mmmpp>delta.pod',
    'master'          => [ # list holding entries for files callable
                          by 'perldoc' ]
    'copies'          => { # patch version perldelta =>
                          minor version perldelta }