PERLDOC(1)

NNAAMMEE
       perldoc - Look up Perl documentation in pod format.

SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS
       ppeerrllddoocc [--hh] [--vv] [--tt] [--uu] [--mm] [--ll]
       PageName|ModuleName|ProgramName

       ppeerrllddoocc --ff BuiltinFunction

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
       perldoc looks up a piece of documentation in .pod format
       that is embedded in the perl installation tree or in a
       perl script, and displays it via pod2man | nroff -man |
       $PAGER. (In addition, if running under HP-UX, col -x will
       be used.) This is primarily used for the documentation for
       the perl library modules.

       Your system may also have man pages installed for those
       modules, in which case you can probably just use the
       man(1) command.

OOPPTTIIOONNSS
       --hh help
            Prints out a brief help message.

       --vv verbose
            Describes search for the item in detail.

       --tt text output
            Display docs using plain text converter, instead of
            nroff. This may be faster, but it won't look as nice.

       --uu unformatted
            Find docs only; skip reformatting by pod2*

       --mm module
            Display the entire module: both code and unformatted
            pod documentation.  This may be useful if the docs
            don't explain a function in the detail you need, and
            you'd like to inspect the code directly; perldoc will
            find the file for you and simply hand it off for
            display.

       --ll file name only
            Display the file name of the module found.

       --ff perlfunc
            The --ff option followed by the name of a perl built in
            function will extract the documentation of this
            function from the perlfunc manpage.

       PPaaggeeNNaammee||MMoodduulleeNNaammee||PPrrooggrraammNNaammee
            The item you want to look up.  Nested modules (such
            as File::Basename) are specified either as

            File::Basename or File/Basename.  You may also give a
            descriptive name of a page, such as perlfunc. You
            make also give a partial or wrong-case name, such as
            "basename" for "File::Basename", but this will be
            slower, if there is more then one page with the same
            partial name, you will only get the first one.

EENNVVIIRROONNMMEENNTT
       Any switches in the PERLDOC environment variable will be
       used before the command line arguments.  perldoc also
       searches directories specified by the PERL5LIB (or PERLLIB
       if PERL5LIB is not defined) and PATH environment
       variables.  (The latter is so that embedded pods for
       executables, such as perldoc itself, are available.)

AAUUTTHHOORR
       Kenneth Albanowski lt;kjahds@kjahds.com

       Minor updates by Andy Dougherty
       lt;doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu