Plain Old Documentation
Plain Old Documentation (POD) is a simplified markup language, which was introduced in 1994 by Larry Wall Perl 5 to insert documentation in the source code of Perl programs.
Properties of POD
POD is a simple language in several respects:
- Easy to write ( for the author )
- An easily readable source code
- Easy to parse
- Easy to accommodate in source code
Dissemination
POD is the most used language in order to document Perl programs and modules, Perl, myself included, and is also standard for the documentation of the modules in CPAN.
Example document
The following snippet contains some typical POD language elements.
= pod
= head1 TITLE
podsample - A sample POD document
= head1 SUMMARY
$ here- > isa ( Piece :: Of :: Code );
print << " END";
This block is not retracted after formatting instructions
searched and preserved spaces.
END
= head1 DESCRIPTION
This is normal text, there follow
B
Here's something eingefüger HTML code.
This block can
Images include, and everything else you so with
Can do HTML.
POD parser will issue the no HTML
completely ignore this.
= end html
= head1 SEE ALSO
The following tools to process POD: