Pod::ParseLink(3pm)					 Perl Programmers Reference Guide				       Pod::ParseLink(3pm)

NAME

       Pod::ParseLink - Parse an L<> formatting code in POD text

SYNOPSIS

	   use Pod::ParseLink;
	   my ($text, $inferred, $name, $section, $type) = parselink ($link);

DESCRIPTION

       This module only provides a single function, parselink(), which takes the text of an L<> formatting code and parses it.	It returns the
       anchor text for the link (if any was given), the anchor text possibly inferred from the name and section, the name or URL, the section if
       any, and the type of link.  The type will be one of 'url', 'pod', or 'man', indicating a URL, a link to a POD page, or a link to a Unix
       manual page.

       Parsing is implemented per perlpodspec.	For backward compatibility, links where there is no section and name contains spaces, or links
       where the entirety of the link (except for the anchor text if given) is enclosed in double-quotes are interpreted as links to a section
       (L</section>).

       The inferred anchor text is implemented per perlpodspec:

	   L<name>	   =>  L<name|name>
	   L</section>	   =>  L<"section"|/section>
	   L<name/section> =>  L<"section" in name|name/section>

       The name may contain embedded E<> and Z<> formatting codes, and the section, anchor text, and inferred anchor text may contain any format-
       ting codes.  Any double quotes around the section are removed as part of the parsing, as is any leading or trailing whitespace.

       If the text of the L<> escape is entirely enclosed in double quotes, it's interpreted as a link to a section for backwards compatibility.

       No attempt is made to resolve formatting codes.	This must be done after calling parselink (since E<> formatting codes can be used to
       escape characters that would otherwise be significant to the parser and resolving them before parsing would result in an incorrect parse of
       a formatting code like:

	   L<verticalE<verbar>barE<sol>slash>

       which should be interpreted as a link to the "vertical|bar/slash" POD page and not as a link to the "slash" section of the "bar" POD page
       with an anchor text of "vertical".  Note that not only the anchor text will need to have formatting codes expanded, but so will the target
       of the link (to deal with E<> and Z<> formatting codes), and special handling of the section may be necessary depending on whether the
       translator wants to consider markup in sections to be significant when resolving links.	See perlpodspec for more information.

SEE ALSO

       Pod::Parser

       The current version of this module is always available from its web site at <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>.

AUTHOR

       Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright 2001 by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.

       This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.8.0							    2002-06-01						       Pod::ParseLink(3pm)