NAME LaTeX::Pod - Transform LaTeX source files to POD (Plain old documentation) SYNOPSIS use LaTeX::Pod; $parser = LaTeX::Pod->new('/path/to/source'); print $parser->convert; DESCRIPTION `LaTeX::Pod' converts LaTeX sources to Perl's POD (Plain old documentation). Currently only a subset of the available LaTeX language is supported; see SUPPORTED LANGUAGE SUBSET for further details. CONSTRUCTOR new The constructor requires that the path to the LaTeX source is defined: $parser = LaTeX::Pod->new('/path/to/source'); Returns the parser object. METHODS convert There is one public *method* available, namely `convert()': $pod = $parser->convert; Returns the computed POD as a string. SUPPORTED LANGUAGE SUBSET LaTeX currently supported: * abstracts * chapters * sections/subsections/subsubsections * description, enumerate and itemize lists * verbatim blocks (and indentation) * plain text * bold/italic/code font tags * umlauts * newlines * comments IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS The current implementation is based upon LaTeX::TOM (the framework being used for parsing the LaTeX source) and its clear distinction between various types of nodes. As an example, a `\chapter' command has a separate text associated with it as its content. `LaTeX::Pod' uses a "look-behind" mechanism for commands and their corresponding texts since they currently cannot be easily detected without such a mechanism. Thus `LaTeX::Pod' was designed with the intention to be *context-sensitive* aware. This is also being aimed at by eventually registering which type of node has been seen before the current one -- useful when constructing logical paragraphs made out of two or more nodes. `LaTeX::Pod' then finally unregisters the type of node seen when it is no longer required. In addition, a dispatch queue is built internally which is executed after all nodes have been processed. Considering that the POD format has a limited subset of directives, the complexity of keeping track of node occurences appears to be bearable. Leading and trailing newlines will be removed from the node's text extracted where needed; furthermore, trailing spaces and tabs will also be purged from each line of POD resulting. BUGS & CAVEATS It is highly recommended to ensure that the structure of the LaTeX input file follows the format specification strictly or the parser may not succeed. SEE ALSO LaTeX::TOM AUTHOR Steven Schubiger LICENSE This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/