How do I get information from perldoc (offline) when I don't know the exact syntax?
For example, when searching for the "lwp" module, it's not sufficient to look for perldoc -m lwp or perldoc -m lwp::simple (in linux/unix).
As a beginner I would think, perl would provide something like perldoc -m /lwp/ to search for the explression.
But you have to find out the exact syntax of the module, and then you can search for the documentation (or, you would write a oneliner/grep to search all the pod files for the expression) - but sometimes I don't remember the exact syntax and need a hint.
Do I miss something?
Searching the faq can be done with an expression perldoc -q something but not anything else (-f / -m / ...) ?
Thank you, for your support.
Update:
- Windows: (by its case-insensitive nature) one can run perldoc [-m] lwp::simple and will find LWP::Simple
- Linux/Unix: perldoc has an -i Parameter for insensitive search. (see perldoc -h)
Running perldoc -i [-m] lwp::simple will find LWP::Simple
(the -m Parameter displays the module code and plaintext POD documentation - one can leave it, because it's not that pretty)
By exact syntax, do you mean the name of the module? Why are you looking for documentation for a module you don't know the name of?
If you want to find some module names installed locally, cpan(1) will give you the list:
From that, you can search a name all you like (as you mentioned):
This follows the basic unix idea of reusing tools that already do a good job.
cpangive you the list andgrepsearches it.In that list would be LWP. Since module names are case sensitive, you have to use the proper case (although some case-insensitive file systems fake this for you):
Mostly, I get the name of the module I want to read about because it's noted in source code or I'm using an object of that type. I take the names from that:
Beyond that, there is current work (discussed this week at The Perl Conference) to index various types of data and let you search for them.