http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1043728

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Is it possible to specify PATH to a higher level directory and have perldoc search for the pod files under all sub directories?

for example, if I had a directory structure like

root/sub1/sub2/file.pod
and I set the path to
export PATH=/root
will perldoc do a recursive search for the pod file? If not is there a way to make this happen?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: perldoc PATH
by toolic (Bishop) on Jul 11, 2013 at 14:03 UTC
    I don't think perldoc can recursively search the PATH directories. It does have a -r switch which can recursively search the @INC directories:
    perldoc -h -r Recursive search (slow)
    If you really need this, I guess you could append all the PATH dirs to @INC.

    See also perldoc -D

      Thanks. That works well. Bit slow (I guess because of the recursive search), but works OK.

      I am also going to generate 'man' files using pod2man. Is there a similar recursive search for UNIX man command as well.

      I also see that you can do a 'man' instead of perldoc for installed perl modules and the man page appears identical to perldoc output. For example

      man File::Path perldoc File::Path
      generate similar looking output.

      I do see that the man files are in a single directory. Does that mean I have to put the 'man' files in a single directory?

      Thanks

        Is there a similar recursive search for UNIX man command as well.
        Check the docs:
        man man
        I also see that you can do a 'man' instead of perldoc
        As documented in perldoc.