RFC: Pod::Remove

Some comments I'd request very much:

Namespace
If it is possible to get Pod::Stripper to return a string (without heavy hacking like tied filehandles eet al), thus making this proposed module rather useless.

You can download the module from here

From the POD

SYNOPSIS

  use Pod::Remove qw(remove_pod);


  # $code is a string containing Perl-code with POD
  my $podless=remove_pod($code);


  # or, without importing:
  use Pod::Remove;


  my $podless=Pod::Remove::remove_pod($code);

Pod::Remove removes POD from Perl Code. It accomplishes this by scanning each line of input and removing everything between /^=/ and /^=cut/. Everything after __END__ and __DATA__ is also removed.

Rather simple, but effective.

There is another module doing something similar, Pod::Stripper. Pod::Stripper is based on Pod::Parser, which works mainly on input- and output-streams, i.e. files or filehandles. Which makes it really hard to capture the result in a string. Which is the reason I wrote Pod::Remove.

I might implement some functions to make handling of various types of input easier. But not now.

--
#!/usr/bin/perl
for(ref bless{},just'another'perl'hacker){s-:+-$"-g&&print$_.$/}
[download]

Comment on RFC: Pod::Remove Select or Download Code
Re: RFC: Pod::Remove by IlyaM (Parson) on Mar 13, 2003 at 11:34 UTC
Pod::Stripper is based on Pod::Parser, which works mainly on input- and output-streams, i.e. files or filehandles. Which makes it really hard to capture the result in a string. In Perl >= 5.8.0 it is not a problem: `# opens filehandle to "in memory" files held in Perl scalars open($fh,'>', \$variable);` [download] In Perl < 5.8.0 you can use IO::Scalar to do the same thing. Another comment: why not patch existing module to do what you want instead of creating yet another CPAN module? -- Ilya Martynov, ilya@iponweb.net CTO IPonWEB (UK) Ltd Quality Perl Programming and Unix Support UK managed @ offshore prices - http://www.iponweb.net Personal website - http://martynov.org	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: RFC: Pod::Remove by domm (Chaplain) on Mar 13, 2003 at 12:06 UTC
Firstly, thanks for the feedback. Secondly: I'm (still) using 5.6.1 and did't know of the feature you mentioned. Using IO::Scalar might also be feasable. Another comment: why not patch existing module to do what you want instead of creating yet another CPAN module? Pod::Parser seems rather complex, so I thought patching it to return a scalar instead of writing to a FILEHANDLE would be hard. Passing an IO::Scalar-FH (or adding some methods to Pod::Parser that implement this) might be a good idea. On the other hand, Pod::Parser seems like a little bit of overkill, if all I want to do is remove POD. I'll give it a thought, and talk to Marek Rouchal about patching Pod::Parser. UPDATE Marek suggested using Pod::Simple, as "therein lies the future" (his words). So I'll take a look there... `-- #!/usr/bin/perl for(ref bless{},just'another'perl'hacker){s-:+-$"-g&&print$_.$/}` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: RFC: Pod::Remove by dakkar (Hermit) on Mar 13, 2003 at 13:46 UTC
I can understand the feeling that Pod::Parser is overkill, but: Why strings? What about DATA filehandles? -- dakkar - Mobilis in mobile	[reply]
Re: Re: RFC: Pod::Remove by domm (Chaplain) on Mar 13, 2003 at 13:56 UTC
* Why strings? Because for some reasons having to do with cpanstats I want to analyse the code of some CPAN modules. I'm not interested in the POD, so I want to remove it. And I do not want to mess around with files (especially when running some analysis on all of CPAN) just to remove POD. What I want is something like `my $podless=remove_pod($code)` [download] so I can mung $podless. * What about DATA filehandles? I'm not sure what you mean by this.. `-- #!/usr/bin/perl for(ref bless{},just'another'perl'hacker){s-:+-$"-g&&print$_.$/}` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Re: RFC: Pod::Remove by dakkar (Hermit) on Mar 13, 2003 at 14:12 UTC
What I meant is: since you are removing everything after `__DATA__`, if the program had something besides POD in there, and accessed it via the `DATA` filehandle, it would no longer work. Reading your reply, anyway, I'm starting to believe you are not going to run those script. -- dakkar - Mobilis in mobile	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Re: RFC: Pod::Remove by domm (Chaplain) on Mar 13, 2003 at 14:47 UTC
Re: RFC: Pod::Remove by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Mar 13, 2003 at 22:42 UTC
I've at least two modules on CPAN that will break if you remove everything after `__DATA__`. Note also that all modules that use `AutoLoader` or `SelfLoader` will have the bulk of their code after a `__DATA__` or `__END__` token. Furthermore, there's no POD in the following code: `print "Hello, =pod world =cut ";` [download] Although your stripper would remove three lines from the code. Abigail	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: RFC: Pod::Remove by domm (Chaplain) on Mar 14, 2003 at 10:12 UTC
I've at least two modules on CPAN that will break if you remove everything after __DATA__. Note also that all modules that use AutoLoader or SelfLoader will have the bulk of their code after a __DATA__ or __END__ token. Good point. So I'll leave __DATA__ and __END__ as is. Furthermore, there's no POD in the following code: `print "Hello, =pod world =cut ";` [download] Although your stripper would remove three lines from the code. Another good point. I'm currently trying to get on the pod-people mailing list, but the subscriber adress seems to be broken.. Anyway, thanks for the feedback, I'll try to get Pod::Simple to DWIM. `-- #!/usr/bin/perl for(ref bless{},just'another'perl'hacker){s-:+-$"-g&&print$_.$/}` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]

RFC: Pod::Remove

From the POD

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

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