NAME

Pod::Tree - Create a static syntax tree for a POD

SYNOPSIS 

  use Pod::Tree;
  
  $tree = new Pod::Tree;
  $tree->load_file      ( $file, %options)
  $tree->load_fh        ( $fh  , %options);
  $tree->load_string    ( $pod , %options);
  $tree->load_paragraphs(\@pod , %options);
  
  $loaded = $tree->loaded;  
  
  $node   = $tree->get_root;
            $tree->set_root  ($node);
  $node =   $tree->pop;
            $tree->push(@nodes);
  
            $tree->walk(\&sub);
            $tree->has_pod and ...
  print     $tree->dump;

REQUIRES

Pod::Escapes

EXPORTS

Nothing

DESCRIPTION

Pod::Tree parses a POD into a static syntax tree. Applications walk the tree to recover the structure and content of the POD. See Pod::Tree::Node for a description of the tree.

METHODS

$tree = new Pod::Tree
Creates a new Pod::Tree object. The syntax tree is initially empty.
$ok = $tree->load_file($file, %options)

Parses a POD and creates a syntax tree for it. $file is the name of a file containing the POD. Returns null iff it can't open $file.

See /OPTIONS for a description of %options

$tree->load_fh($fh, %options)

Parses a POD and creates a syntax tree for it. $fh is an IO::File object that is open on a file containing the POD.

See /OPTIONS for a description of %options

$tree->load_string($pod, %options)

Parses a POD and creates a syntax tree for it. $pod is a single string containing the POD.

See /OPTIONS for a description of %options

$tree->load_paragraphs(\@pod, %options)

Parses a POD and creates a syntax tree for it. \@pod is a reference to an array of strings. Each string is one paragraph of the POD.

See /OPTIONS for a description of %options

$loaded = $tree->loaded
Returns true iff one of the load_* methods has been called on $tree.
$node = $tree->get_root
Returns the root node of the syntax tree. See Pod::Tree::Node for a description of the syntax tree.
$tree->set_root($node)
Sets the root of the syntax tree to $node.
$tree->push(@nodes)
Pushes @nodes onto the end of the top-level list of nodes in $tree.
$node = $tree->pop
Pops $node off of the end of the top-level list of nodes in $tree.
$tree->walk(\&sub)

Walks the syntax tree, depth first. Calls sub once for each node in the tree. The current node is passed as the first argument to sub.

walk descends to the children and siblings of $node iff sub() returns true.

$tree->has_pod
Returns true iff $tree contains POD paragraphs.
$tree->dump
Pretty prints the syntax tree. This will show you how Pod::Tree interpreted your POD.

OPTIONS

These options may be passed in the %options hash to the load_* methods.

in_pod => 0
in_pod => 1

Sets the initial value of in_pod. When in_pod is false, the parser ignores all text until the next =command paragraph.

The initial value of in_pod defaults to false for load_file() and load_fh() calls and true for load_string() and load_paragraphs() calls. This is usually what you want, unless you want consistency. If this isn't what you want, pass different initial values in the %options hash.

limit => n
Only parse the first n paragraphs in the POD.

DIAGNOSTICS

load_file($file)
Returns null iff it can't open $file.

NOTES

No round-tripping

Currently, Pod::Tree does not provide a complete, exact representation of its input. For example, it doesn't distingish between 

    C<$foo-E<gt>bar>

and 

   C<< $foo->bar >>

As a result, it is not guaranteed that a file can be exactly reconstructed from its Pod::Tree representation.

L<> markups

In the documentation of the 

    L<"sec">	section in this manual page

markup, perlpod has always claimed 

		(the quotes are optional)

However, there is no way to decide from the syntax alone whether 

    L<foo>

is a link to the foo man page or a link to the foo section of this man page.

Pod::Tree parses L<foo> as a link to a section if foo looks like a section name (e.g. contains whitespace), and as a link to a man page otherswise.

In practice, this tends to break links to sections. If you want your section links to work reliably, write them as L<"foo"> or L</foo>.

SEE ALSO

perl(1), Pod::Tree::Node, Pod::Tree::HTML

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AUTHOR

Steven McDougall <swmcd@world.std.com>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1999-2009 by Steven McDougall. This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.