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Plain Old Documentation - Wikipedia

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href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_Old_Documentation" title="Plain Old Documentation – German" lang="de" hreflang="de" data-title="Plain Old Documentation" data-language-autonym="Deutsch" data-language-local-name="German" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Deutsch</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fr mw-list-item"><a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_Old_Documentation" title="Plain Old Documentation – French" lang="fr" hreflang="fr" data-title="Plain Old Documentation" data-language-autonym="Français" data-language-local-name="French" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Français</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ko mw-list-item"><a href="https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%ED%94%8C%EB%A0%88%EC%9D%B8_%EC%98%AC%EB%93%9C_%EB%8F%84%ED%81%90%EB%A9%98%ED%85%8C%EC%9D%B4%EC%85%98" title="플레인 올드 도큐멘테이션 – Korean" lang="ko" hreflang="ko" data-title="플레인 올드 도큐멘테이션" data-language-autonym="한국어" data-language-local-name="Korean" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>한국어</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-nl mw-list-item"><a href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_Old_Documentation" title="Plain Old Documentation – Dutch" lang="nl" hreflang="nl" data-title="Plain Old Documentation" data-language-autonym="Nederlands" data-language-local-name="Dutch" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Nederlands</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ja mw-list-item"><a href="https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_Old_Documentation" title="Plain Old Documentation – Japanese" lang="ja" hreflang="ja" data-title="Plain Old Documentation" data-language-autonym="日本語" data-language-local-name="Japanese" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>日本語</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ru mw-list-item"><a href="https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F" title="Простая старая документация – Russian" lang="ru" hreflang="ru" data-title="Простая старая документация" data-language-autonym="Русский" data-language-local-name="Russian" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Русский</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fi mw-list-item"><a href="https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_Old_Documentation" title="Plain Old Documentation – Finnish" lang="fi" hreflang="fi" data-title="Plain Old Documentation" data-language-autonym="Suomi" data-language-local-name="Finnish" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Suomi</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-uk mw-list-item"><a href="https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/POD_%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82" title="POD формат – Ukrainian" lang="uk" hreflang="uk" data-title="POD формат" 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data-mw-ve-target-container> <div class="vector-body-before-content"> <div class="mw-indicators"> </div> <div id="siteSub" class="noprint">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</div> </div> <div id="contentSub"><div id="mw-content-subtitle"></div></div> <div id="mw-content-text" class="mw-body-content"><div class="mw-content-ltr mw-parser-output" lang="en" dir="ltr"><div class="shortdescription nomobile noexcerpt noprint searchaux" style="display:none">Markup language for Perl documentation</div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1251242444">.mw-parser-output .ambox{border:1px solid #a2a9b1;border-left:10px solid #36c;background-color:#fbfbfb;box-sizing:border-box}.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+link+.ambox{margin-top:-1px}html body.mediawiki .mw-parser-output .ambox.mbox-small-left{margin:4px 1em 4px 0;overflow:hidden;width:238px;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:88%;line-height:1.25em}.mw-parser-output .ambox-speedy{border-left:10px solid #b32424;background-color:#fee7e6}.mw-parser-output .ambox-delete{border-left:10px solid #b32424}.mw-parser-output .ambox-content{border-left:10px solid #f28500}.mw-parser-output .ambox-style{border-left:10px solid #fc3}.mw-parser-output .ambox-move{border-left:10px solid #9932cc}.mw-parser-output .ambox-protection{border-left:10px solid #a2a9b1}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-text{border:none;padding:0.25em 0.5em;width:100%}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image{border:none;padding:2px 0 2px 0.5em;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-imageright{border:none;padding:2px 0.5em 2px 0;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-empty-cell{border:none;padding:0;width:1px}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image-div{width:52px}@media(min-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .ambox{margin:0 10%}}@media print{body.ns-0 .mw-parser-output .ambox{display:none!important}}</style><table class="box-More_footnotes_needed plainlinks metadata ambox ambox-style ambox-More_footnotes_needed" role="presentation"><tbody><tr><td class="mbox-image"><div class="mbox-image-div"><span typeof="mw:File"><span><img alt="" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg/40px-Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg.png" decoding="async" width="40" height="40" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg/60px-Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg/80px-Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="48" data-file-height="48" /></span></span></div></td><td class="mbox-text"><div class="mbox-text-span">This article includes a list of <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources#General_references" title="Wikipedia:Citing sources">general references</a>, but <b>it lacks sufficient corresponding <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Inline_citations" title="Wikipedia:Citing sources">inline citations</a></b>.<span class="hide-when-compact"> Please help to <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Reliability" title="Wikipedia:WikiProject Reliability">improve</a> this article by <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:When_to_cite" title="Wikipedia:When to cite">introducing</a> more precise citations.</span> <span class="date-container"><i>(<span class="date">March 2024</span>)</i></span><span class="hide-when-compact"><i> (<small><a href="/wiki/Help:Maintenance_template_removal" title="Help:Maintenance template removal">Learn how and when to remove this message</a></small>)</i></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table> <p><b>Plain Old Documentation</b> (<b>pod</b>) is a <a href="/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language" title="Lightweight markup language">lightweight markup language</a> used to document the <a href="/wiki/Perl" title="Perl">Perl</a> programming language as well as Perl modules and programs. </p> <meta property="mw:PageProp/toc" /> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Design">Design</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Plain_Old_Documentation&amp;action=edit&amp;section=1" title="Edit section: Design"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Pod is designed to be a simple, clean language with just enough syntax to be useful. It purposefully does not include mechanisms for fonts, images, colors or tables. Some of its goals are: </p> <ul><li>Easy to parse</li> <li>Easy to convert to other formats, such as <a href="/wiki/XML" title="XML">XML</a>, <a href="/wiki/TeX" title="TeX">TeX</a> or <a href="/wiki/Markdown" title="Markdown">Markdown</a></li> <li>Easy to incorporate sample code</li> <li>Easy to read without a pod formatter (i.e. in its source-code form)</li> <li>Easy to write in</li></ul> <p>An extended version of pod that supports tables and footnotes called PseudoPOD has been used by <a href="/wiki/O%27Reilly_%26_Associates" class="mw-redirect" title="O&#39;Reilly &amp; Associates">O'Reilly &amp; Associates</a> to produce several Perl books, most notably <i><a href="/wiki/Programming_Perl" title="Programming Perl">Programming Perl</a></i> by <a href="/wiki/Larry_Wall" title="Larry Wall">Larry Wall</a>, <a href="/wiki/Tom_Christiansen" title="Tom Christiansen">Tom Christiansen</a>, and Jon Orwant. </p><p>Pod makes it easy to write <a href="/wiki/Manpage" class="mw-redirect" title="Manpage">manual pages</a>, which are well suited to user-oriented documents. In contrast, other documentation systems, such as Python's <a href="/wiki/Docstring" title="Docstring">Docstring</a> or Java's <a href="/wiki/Javadoc" title="Javadoc">Javadoc</a>, though they can be used for user documentation, are designed to facilitate generating developer-oriented documentation about the source code for a software project. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Use">Use</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Plain_Old_Documentation&amp;action=edit&amp;section=2" title="Edit section: Use"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Pod is the language used for most <a href="/wiki/Documentation" title="Documentation">documentation</a> in the Perl world. This includes Perl itself, nearly all publicly released <a href="/wiki/Perl_module" title="Perl module">modules</a>, many <a href="/wiki/Script_(computer_programming)" class="mw-redirect" title="Script (computer programming)">scripts</a>, most design documents, many articles on <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.perl.com/">Perl.com</a> and other Perl-related web sites, and the <a href="/wiki/Parrot_virtual_machine" title="Parrot virtual machine">Parrot virtual machine</a>. </p><p>Pod is rarely read in the raw, although it is designed to be readable without the assistance of a formatting tool. Instead, it is read with the <span class="anchor" id="perldoc"></span>perldoc tool, or converted into Unix <a href="/wiki/Man_page" title="Man page">man pages</a> or Web-standard HTML pages. </p><p>It is also possible to use pod in other contexts than Perl. For example, to add simple documentation to <a href="/wiki/Bash_(Unix_shell)" title="Bash (Unix shell)">bash scripts</a>, which can then be easily converted to man pages.<sup id="cite_ref-pod_in_bash_1-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-pod_in_bash-1"><span class="cite-bracket">&#91;</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">&#93;</span></a></sup> Such uses rely on language-specific hacks to hide the pod part(s), such as (in bash) prefixing the POD section with the line <code>:&lt;&lt;=cut</code> which works by calling bash's <a href="/wiki/No-op" class="mw-redirect" title="No-op">no-op</a> <code>:</code> command, with the whole block of Pod as a <a href="/wiki/Here_document" title="Here document">here document</a> as input to it. </p><p>Pure pod files usually have the extension <code>.pod</code>, but pod is mostly used directly in Perl code, which typically uses the <code>.pl</code> and <code>.pm</code> extensions. (The Perl <a href="/wiki/Interpreter_(computing)" title="Interpreter (computing)">interpreter</a>'s <a href="/wiki/Parser" class="mw-redirect" title="Parser">parser</a> is designed to ignore pod in Perl code.) In source code files, the documentation is generally placed after the <code>__END__</code> marker (which also helps <a href="/wiki/Syntax_highlighting" title="Syntax highlighting">syntax highlighting</a> in some editors to display it as comments). </p><p>Pod can easily be converted to other formats, for example some of the various <a href="/wiki/Wiki" title="Wiki">Wiki</a> formats like: <a href="/wiki/WikiWikiWeb" title="WikiWikiWeb">WikiWikiWeb</a>, <a href="/w/index.php?title=Kwiki&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1" class="new" title="Kwiki (page does not exist)">Kwiki</a>, <a href="/wiki/TWiki" title="TWiki">TWiki</a>, <a href="/wiki/UseModWiki" title="UseModWiki">UseModWiki</a>, <a href="/wiki/TiddlyWiki" title="TiddlyWiki">TiddlyWiki</a>, <a href="/wiki/Textile_(markup_language)" title="Textile (markup language)">Textile</a>, <a href="/wiki/MediaWiki" title="MediaWiki">MediaWiki</a>, <a href="/wiki/MoinMoin" title="MoinMoin">MoinMoin</a> or <a href="/wiki/Confluence" title="Confluence">Confluence</a> using Pod::Simple::Wiki. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Example">Example</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Plain_Old_Documentation&amp;action=edit&amp;section=3" title="Edit section: Example"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>This document is syntactically correct pod, which attempts to follow the major conventions on section naming as well.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">&#91;</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">&#93;</span></a></sup> </p> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1195917819">.mw-parser-output .pre-borderless{border:none}</style><pre class="pre">=head1 NAME <code class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-perl mw-content-ltr" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" dir="ltr"><span class="nn">My::</span><span class="n">Module</span></code> - An example module =head1 SYNOPSIS <code class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-perl mw-content-ltr" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" dir="ltr"><span class="k">use</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">My::Module</span><span class="p">;</span></code> <code class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-perl mw-content-ltr" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" dir="ltr"><span class="k">my</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">$object</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">My::Module</span><span class="o">-&gt;</span><span class="k">new</span><span class="p">();</span></code> <code class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-perl mw-content-ltr" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" dir="ltr"><span class="k">print</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">$object</span><span class="o">-&gt;</span><span class="n">as_string</span><span class="p">;</span></code> =head1 DESCRIPTION This module does not really exist, it was made for the sole purpose of demonstrating how POD works. =head2 Methods =over 12 =item C&lt;new&gt; Returns a new <code class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-perl mw-content-ltr" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" dir="ltr"><span class="nn">My::</span><span class="n">Module</span></code> object. =item C&lt;as_string&gt; Returns a stringified representation of the object. This is mainly for debugging purposes. =back =head1 LICENSE This is released under the <a href="/wiki/Artistic_License" title="Artistic License">Artistic License</a>. See L&lt;perlartistic&gt;. =head1 AUTHOR Juerd - L&lt;<span class="plainlinks"><a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://juerd.nl/">http://juerd.nl/</a></span>&gt; =head1 SEE ALSO L&lt;perlpod&gt;, L&lt;perlpodspec&gt; =cut</pre> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Formatting_details">Formatting details</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Plain_Old_Documentation&amp;action=edit&amp;section=4" title="Edit section: Formatting details"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Pod files are written in an <a href="/wiki/ASCII" title="ASCII">ASCII</a>-compatible <a href="/wiki/Character_encoding" title="Character encoding">encoding</a>, such as <a href="/wiki/Latin-1" class="mw-redirect" title="Latin-1">Latin-1</a> or <a href="/wiki/UTF-8" title="UTF-8">UTF-8</a>. A pod parser always assumes that the file it is parsing doesn't start with pod; it ignores all lines until it sees a pod directive. pod directives must come at the beginning of a line, and all begin with an equal sign. The pod parser will then assume that all following lines are pod, until it encounters a line consisting of the "=cut" directive. Any content following that is ignored until the parser encounters another pod directive. Thus, pod can be intermixed with executable source code if the language's parser knows how to recognize and ignore pod. </p><p>Pod content is divided into <b>paragraphs</b> by empty lines. Paragraphs that begin with <a href="/wiki/Whitespace_character" title="Whitespace character">whitespace</a> characters—tabs or spaces—are considered to be "verbatim paragraphs", and are left completely unformatted; these are used for sample code, <a href="/wiki/ASCII_art" title="ASCII art">ASCII art</a>, etc. Paragraphs that begin with an equal sign are "command paragraphs"; the sequence of alphanumeric characters immediately following the equal sign is treated as a pod directive, and the rest of the paragraph is formatted according to that directive. Some directives also affect the following paragraphs. If a paragraph starts with something besides an equal sign or whitespace, it's considered an "ordinary paragraph". </p><p>Both ordinary paragraphs and the contents of command paragraphs are parsed for formatting codes. Formatting in pod is very plain; it's mainly limited to bold, italic, underlined, monospaced, and a few other formats. There is also a code for linking between pod documents or to another section within the same document. Formatting codes consist of either: </p> <ul><li>A single uppercase letter, followed by a less-than sign (&lt;), the content to be formatted, and a greater-than sign (&gt;), e.g. <code>B&lt;bolded text&gt;</code>, <i>or</i></li> <li>A single uppercase letter, two or more less-than signs (&lt;&lt;), a space, the content to be formatted, another space, and the same number of greater-than signs as were used before, e.g. <code>B&lt;&lt; bolded text &gt;&gt;</code>. This form is often used for code snippets containing a greater-than sign, which would otherwise end the formatting code.</li></ul> <p>Commands in pod include four levels of headings, bulleted and numbered lists, and commands to mark sections as being in another language. The latter feature allows for special formatting to be given to parsers that support it. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Plain_Old_Documentation&amp;action=edit&amp;section=5" title="Edit section: See also"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Comparison_of_documentation_generators" title="Comparison of documentation generators">Comparison of documentation generators</a></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Plain_Old_Documentation&amp;action=edit&amp;section=6" title="Edit section: References"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>Wall, Larry; Christiansen, Tom; &amp; Orwant, Jon (2000). <i><a href="/wiki/Programming_Perl" title="Programming Perl">Programming Perl</a></i> (3rd ed.). Sebastopol: O'Reilly &amp; Associates. <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1238218222">.mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free.id-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited.id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration.id-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription.id-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-size:contain;padding:0 1em 0 0}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#085;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}</style><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a>&#160;<a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-596-00027-8" title="Special:BookSources/0-596-00027-8">0-596-00027-8</a>.</li> <li>Chapter 15, "Working with Pod", in <a href="/wiki/Brian_d_foy" title="Brian d foy">foy, brian d</a> (2007). <i><a href="/wiki/Mastering_Perl" class="mw-redirect" title="Mastering Perl">Mastering Perl</a></i>. Sebastopol: <a href="/wiki/O%27Reilly_Media" title="O&#39;Reilly Media">O'Reilly Media</a>. <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a>&#160;<a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-596-52724-1" title="Special:BookSources/0-596-52724-1">0-596-52724-1</a>.</li> <li>Section 5.2, "Embedding Documentation in Shell Scripts", in Albing, Carl; Vossen, JP; &amp; Cameron Newham. (2007). <i>bash Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for bash Users</i>; O'Reilly &amp; Associates. <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a>&#160;<a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-596-52678-4" title="Special:BookSources/0-596-52678-4">0-596-52678-4</a>.</li></ul> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1239543626">.mw-parser-output .reflist{margin-bottom:0.5em;list-style-type:decimal}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .reflist{font-size:90%}}.mw-parser-output .reflist .references{font-size:100%;margin-bottom:0;list-style-type:inherit}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-2{column-width:30em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-3{column-width:25em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns{margin-top:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns ol{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns li{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-alpha{list-style-type:upper-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-roman{list-style-type:upper-roman}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-alpha{list-style-type:lower-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-greek{list-style-type:lower-greek}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-roman{list-style-type:lower-roman}</style><div class="reflist"> <div class="mw-references-wrap"><ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-pod_in_bash-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-pod_in_bash_1-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://bahut.alma.ch/2007/08/embedding-documentation-in-shell-script_16.html">Embedding POD documentation in a shell script</a> (retrieved 10 Jan 2011)</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFJuerd" class="citation web cs1">Juerd. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://p3rl.org/perlpodtut">"perlpodtut"</a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&amp;rft.genre=unknown&amp;rft.btitle=perlpodtut&amp;rft.au=Juerd&amp;rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fp3rl.org%2Fperlpodtut&amp;rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3APlain+Old+Documentation" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> </ol></div></div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Plain_Old_Documentation&amp;action=edit&amp;section=7" title="Edit section: External links"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlpod.html">perlpod (documentation on pod for people writing documents in it)</a></li> <li><a rel="nofollow" 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