Pod::ParseLink(3perl)            Perl Programmers Reference Guide           Pod::ParseLink(3perl)



NAME
       Pod::ParseLink - Parse an L<> formatting code in POD text

SYNOPSIS
           use Pod::ParseLink;
           my ($text, $inferred, $name, $section, $type) = parselink ($link);

DESCRIPTION
       This module only provides a single function, parselink(), which takes the text of an L<>
       formatting code and parses it.  It returns the anchor text for the link (if any was
       given), the anchor text possibly inferred from the name and section, the name or URL, the
       section if any, and the type of link.  The type will be one of "url", "pod", or "man",
       indicating a URL, a link to a POD page, or a link to a Unix manual page.

       Parsing is implemented per perlpodspec.  For backward compatibility, links where there is
       no section and name contains spaces, or links where the entirety of the link (except for
       the anchor text if given) is enclosed in double-quotes are interpreted as links to a
       section (L</section>).

       The inferred anchor text is implemented per perlpodspec:

           L<name>         =>  L<name|name>
           L</section>     =>  L<"section"|/section>
           L<name/section> =>  L<"section" in name|name/section>

       The name may contain embedded E<> and Z<> formatting codes, and the section, anchor text,
       and inferred anchor text may contain any formatting codes.  Any double quotes around the
       section are removed as part of the parsing, as is any leading or trailing whitespace.

       If the text of the L<> escape is entirely enclosed in double quotes, it's interpreted as a
       link to a section for backward compatibility.

       No attempt is made to resolve formatting codes.  This must be done after calling
       parselink() (since E<> formatting codes can be used to escape characters that would
       otherwise be significant to the parser and resolving them before parsing would result in
       an incorrect parse of a formatting code like:

           L<verticalE<verbar>barE<sol>slash>

       which should be interpreted as a link to the "vertical|bar/slash" POD page and not as a
       link to the "slash" section of the "bar" POD page with an anchor text of "vertical".  Note
       that not only the anchor text will need to have formatting codes expanded, but so will the
       target of the link (to deal with E<> and Z<> formatting codes), and special handling of
       the section may be necessary depending on whether the translator wants to consider markup
       in sections to be significant when resolving links.  See perlpodspec for more information.

SEE ALSO
       Pod::Parser

       The current version of this module is always available from its web site at
       <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>.

AUTHOR
       Russ Allbery <rra AT stanford.edu>.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
       Copyright 2001, 2008, 2009 Russ Allbery <rra AT stanford.edu>.

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



perl v5.20.2                                2014-12-27                      Pod::ParseLink(3perl)