NAME

Pod2VMSHlp - a pod to VMS Help format converter

INSTALLATION

Follow the usual 4 line mantra after building and installing perl, that is:

perl Makefile.PL
mms
perl [.t]script.t   ! rather than "mms test"
mms install

Note that with Perl 5.005_02 "mms test" may not work with this module for unknown reasons. You should however, expect to obtain:

perl [.t]script.t
1..4
ok 1
ok 2
ok 3
ok 4

If you see message(s) about a missing Test or Test::Harness module then try running:

perl [.t]script.s

where the result should be as for script.t above and any other result is cause for alarm :-)

By the way, this is a simple (i.e. non XS based) module that can still be installed "by hand" if you have neither MMS (from DECSet) nor MMK (free from MadGoat) installed. Just be sure to copy [.Pod]Hlp.pm right into

perl_root:[lib.pod]Hlp.pm

You might also want to COPY the pod2hlp. program into:

perl_root:[lib.pod]pod2hlp.

And run that script from there (more information is in the "SAMPLE SCRIPTS" section below).

DOCUMENTATION

Is available in pod in the Pod::Hlp package. Type:

perldoc Pod::Hlp 

for more, or convert it to .HLP, stick it in a .HLB and type HELP POD HLP for more information.

SAMPLE SCRIPTS

Included with the Pod2VMSHlp package are two scripts that will help you to turn files containing pod into VMS HLP files and/or HLB libraries:

  • pod2hlp

    Usage is: perl pod2hlp. filename.pod n where n is the level that you want filename.hlp to be, e.g. the default is '1' so that:

    filename.pod           1 filename
    =head1 Foo             2 Foo
    =head2 Bar             3 Bar

    but this could be overridden with:

    perl pod2hlp. filename.pod 3

    to obtain:

    filename.pod           3 filename
    =head1 Foo             4 Foo
    =head2 Bar             5 Bar

    Warning: The help librarian has strict requirements on the order of section headings. Hence pod2hlp may map some =head1 and =head2's differently depending on whether they are (or follow) frequently seen headers like "NAME", "AUTHOR", etc. The basic rule is don't put a =head2 at the start of a pod file, try a =head1 instead. Also try to avoid =headN for N >= 3. This latter is a pod rule (see perlpod) that is enforced by Pod::Hlp.

  • pod2hlb

    Usage is: perl pod2hlb. this will take all the perl*.pod files in perl_root:[lib.pod] and turn them into perl*.hlp files (at help levels 1,2,3) and create a new help library PERL.HLB all in the DEFAULT directory. This script uses DCLs LIBRARY/HELP librarian.

AUTHOR

Copyright (c) 1999 by Peter Prymmer <pvhp@best.com>. This package may be distributed under the same terms as perl. This module borrows quite heavily from Tom Christiansen's Pod::Text.pm module. The regression test was borrowed from Nick Ing-Simmons' PodToHTML module on CPAN.

1999-04-30 16:14:59.87 - released as Pod2VMSHlp 1.01. 1996-08-20 15:17:29.85 - released as Pod2Hlp 1.00.