NAME

Pod::Simple::PullParser -- a pull-parser interface to parsing Pod

SYNOPSIS

 my $parser = SomePodProcessor->new;
 $parser->set_source( "whatever.pod" );
 $parser->run;

Or:

 my $parser = SomePodProcessor->new;
 $parser->set_source( $some_filehandle_object );
 $parser->run;

Or:

 my $parser = SomePodProcessor->new;
 $parser->set_source( \$document_source );
 $parser->run;

Or:

 my $parser = SomePodProcessor->new;
 $parser->set_source( \@document_lines );
 $parser->run;

And elsewhere:

 require 5;
 package SomePodProcessor;
 use strict;
 use base qw(Pod::Simple::PullParser);
 
 sub run {
   my $self = shift;
  Token:
   while(my $token = $self->get_token) {
     ...process each token...
   }
 }

DESCRIPTION

This class is for using Pod::Simple to build a Pod processor -- but one that uses an interface based on a stream of token objects, instead of based on events.

This is a subclass of Pod::Simple and inherits all its methods.

A subclass of Pod::Simple::PullParser should define a run method that calls $token = $parser->get_token to pull tokens.

See the source for Pod::Simple::RTF for an example of a formatter that uses Pod::Simple::PullParser.

METHODS

my $token = $parser->get_token: This returns the next token object (which will be of a subclass of Pod::Simple::PullParserToken), or undef if the parser-stream has hit the end of the document.
$parser->unget_token( $token )
$parser->unget_token( $token1, $token2, ... ): This restores the token object(s) to the front of the parser stream.

The source has to be set before you can parse anything. The lowest-level way is to call set_source:

$parser->set_source( $filename )
$parser->set_source( $filehandle_object )
$parser->set_source( \$document_source )
$parser->set_source( \@document_lines )

Or you can call these methods, which Pod::Simple::PullParser has defined to work just like Pod::Simple's same-named methods:

$parser->parse_file(...)
$parser->parse_string_document(...)
$parser->filter(...)
$parser->parse_from_file(...)

For those to work, the Pod-processing subclass of Pod::Simple::PullParser has to have defined a $parser->run method -- so it is advised that all Pod::Simple::PullParser subclasses do so. See the Synopsis above, or the source for Pod::Simple::RTF.

Authors of formatter subclasses might find these methods useful to call on a parser object that you haven't started pulling tokens from yet:

my $title_string = $parser->get_title

This tries to get the title string out of $parser, by getting some tokens, and scanning them for the title, and then ungetting them so that you can process the token-stream from the beginning.

For example, suppose you have a document that starts out:

  =head1 NAME
  
  Hoo::Boy::Wowza -- Stuff B<wow> yeah!

$parser->get_title on that document will return "Hoo::Boy::Wowza -- Stuff wow yeah!".

In cases where get_title can't find the title, it will return empty-string ("").

my $title_string = $parser->get_short_title

This is just like get_title, except that it returns just the modulename, if the title seems to be of the form "SomeModuleName -- description".

For example, suppose you have a document that starts out:

  =head1 NAME
  
  Hoo::Boy::Wowza -- Stuff B<wow> yeah!

then $parser->get_short_title on that document will return "Hoo::Boy::Wowza".

But if the document starts out:

  =head1 NAME
  
  Hooboy, stuff B<wow> yeah!

then $parser->get_short_title on that document will return "Hooboy, stuff wow yeah!".

If the title can't be found, then get_short_title returns empty-string ("").

$author_name = $parser->get_author

This works like get_title except that it returns the contents of the "=head1 AUTHOR\n\nParagraph...\n" section, assuming that that section isn't terribly long.

(This method tolerates "AUTHORS" instead of "AUTHOR" too.)

$description_name = $parser->get_description

This works like get_title except that it returns the contents of the "=head1 PARAGRAPH\n\nParagraph...\n" section, assuming that that section isn't terribly long.

$version_block = $parser->get_version

This works like get_title except that it returns the contents of the "=head1 VERSION\n\n[BIG BLOCK]\n" block. Note that this does NOT return the module's $VERSION!!

NOTE

You don't actually have to define a run method. If you're writing a Pod-formatter class, you should define a run just so that users can call parse_file etc, but you don't have to.

And if you're not writing a formatter class, but are instead just writing a program that does something simple with a Pod::PullParser object (and not an object of a subclass), then there's no reason to bother subclassing to add a run method.

COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMERS

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

AUTHOR

Sean M. Burke sburke@cpan.org