###################################################################### Pod::HtmlTree 0.97 ###################################################################### NAME Pod::HtmlTree - Create a hierarchy of HTML documents from your module's PMs. SYNOPSIS use Pod::HtmlTree qw(pod2htmltree); pod2htmltree($httproot); DESCRIPTION So you've just created a great new Perl module distribution including several *.pm files? You've added nice POD documentation to each of them and now you'd like to view it nicely formatted in a web browser? And you'd also like to navigate between all those manual pages in your distribution and even view their source code? Read on, "Pod::HtmlTree" is what you need. It traverses your module's distribution directory (which you've probably created using "h2xs"), finds all *.pm files recursivly and calls "pod2html()" on them, hereby resolving all POD links (L<...> style). Patching SEE ALSO and WHERE'S THE SOURCE? It then saves the nicely formatted HTML files under "docs/html" and updates each's "SEE ALSO" section to contain links to every other *.pm file in you're module's distribution. So, if you want that, please make sure your documentation contains a "SEE ALSO" section. Also, at the end of the "SEE ALSO" section, it'll add a link to the source code of the current *.pm file, just in case a user wants to browse it because there's issues which aren't clear from the documentation. It also adds a stylesheet to "docs/html", which is referenced by every HTML file. So, in order to obtain HTML documentation for all your distribution's files, just call the script (which comes with the distribution of this module) pod2htmltree httproot while you're located in the top directory of your module's distribution. What's in "httproot" is explained below. The script "pod2htmltree" just calls use Pod::HtmlTree; Pod::HtmlTree::pod2htmltree($ARGV[0]); internally, if you want to call it from within Perl, that's the way to go. FUNCTIONS pod2htmltree( $httproot ); Make sure you've "chdir()"ed to your module's top directory when calling this function. Recursively finds all "*.pm" files under the current directory, transforms them to HTML and places the result files in a tree starting at "docs/html" from the current directory. $httproot is the URL (absolute like "http://..." or relative like "/mymodule") to the top directory of your module, as seen from your web browser. If you don't like the HTML documents to be created under "docs/html", you can specify the relative (!) directory in the additional parameter $htmldocdir: pod2htmltree( $httproot, $htmldocdir ); If not specified, $htmldocdir defaults to "docs/html", therefore the one-parameter syntax shown above. banner( $text ); Prints the passed text string nicely formatted as a screen warning. E. g., to notify the user after running "pod2htmltree" to ""Make sure http://localhost/perldoc/Pod-HtmlTree points to /u/mschilli/DEV/Pod-HtmlTree"", just pass it to "banner()" and print the return value: ************************************************** * Make sure * * http://localhost/perldoc/Pod-HtmlTree points * * to /u/mschilli/DEV/Pod-HtmlTree * ************************************************** EXAMPLE So, if your module is under /u/mschilli/MYPROJECTS/Spiffy-Module and has the files Spiffy-Module Spiffy-Module/Changes Spiffy-Module/MANIFEST Spiffy-Module/Makefile.PL Spiffy-Module/README Spiffy-Module/lib Spiffy-Module/lib/Spiffy.pm Spiffy-Module/lib/Spiffy/Subspiffy.pm Spiffy-Module/lib/Spiffy/Subspiffy/Subsub.pm Spiffy-Module/t Spiffy-Module/t/1.t a call to cd Spiffy-Module pod2htmltree http://localhost/Spiffy from within the shell or use Pod::HtmlTree; Pod::HtmlTree::pod2htmltree("http://localhost/Spiffy"); from within Perl will "pod2html"-transform the files "Spiffy.pm", "Subspiffy.pm" and "Subsub.pm" to HTML and put the result there: Spiffy-Module/docs/html/Spiffy.html Spiffy-Module/docs/html/Spiffy/Subspiffy.html Spiffy-Module/docs/html/Spiffy/Subspiffy/Subspiffy.html Directories are created on the fly as necessary. To view them on your web server via a browser, you need to create a symbolic link from your web server's document root. If the module's distribution is located under /u/mschilli/MYPROJECTS/Spiffy-Module and your web server's doc root is "/opt/netscape/htdocs", you need to create a symlink like ln -s /u/mschilli/MYPROJECTS/Spiffy-Module /opt/netscape/htdocs/Spiffy Then, if you point your browser to http://localhost/Spiffy/docs/html/Spiffy.html you'll see the documentation. If you've specified a (probably empty) "SEE ALSO" section, it will be automatically populated with other modules in your distribution and a link to the current module's source code. Or, call it in Makefile.PL If you want to give the user of your distribution the opportunity to create their own browsable HTML-documentation of your module, just include the following in the Makefil.PL of your distribution: use ExtUtils::MakeMaker; >> # Generate documentation? >> if (prompt("Generate HTML documentation?", "n") =~ /^y/) { >> require Pod::HtmlTree; >> Pod::HtmlTree::pod2htmltree("/mymodule"); >> print Pod::HtmlTree::banner( >> "Make sure http://localhost/mymodule points to ", `pwd`); >> } WriteMakefile( ... ); SEE ALSO AUTHOR Mike Schilli, COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright 2002 by Mike Schilli This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.