Test::Pod(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Test::Pod(3)

Test::Pod - check for POD errors in files

Version 1.52

"Test::Pod" lets you check the validity of a POD file, and report its results in standard "Test::Simple" fashion.

use Test::Pod tests => $num_tests;
pod_file_ok( $file, "Valid POD file" );

Module authors can include the following in a t/pod.t file and have "Test::Pod" automatically find and check all POD files in a module distribution:

use Test::More;
eval "use Test::Pod 1.00";
plan skip_all => "Test::Pod 1.00 required for testing POD" if $@;
all_pod_files_ok();

You can also specify a list of files to check, using the all_pod_files() function supplied:

use strict;
use Test::More;
eval "use Test::Pod 1.00";
plan skip_all => "Test::Pod 1.00 required for testing POD" if $@;
my @poddirs = qw( blib script );
all_pod_files_ok( all_pod_files( @poddirs ) );

Or even (if you're running under Apache::Test):

use strict;
use Test::More;
eval "use Test::Pod 1.00";
plan skip_all => "Test::Pod 1.00 required for testing POD" if $@;
my @poddirs = qw( blib script );
use File::Spec::Functions qw( catdir updir );
all_pod_files_ok(
    all_pod_files( map { catdir updir, $_ } @poddirs )
);

Check POD files for errors or warnings in a test file, using "Pod::Simple" to do the heavy lifting.

pod_file_ok() will okay the test if the POD parses correctly. Certain conditions are not reported yet, such as a file with no pod in it at all.

When it fails, pod_file_ok() will show any pod checking errors as diagnostics.

The optional second argument TESTNAME is the name of the test. If it is omitted, pod_file_ok() chooses a default test name "POD test for FILENAME".

Checks all the files under @entries for valid POD. It runs all_pod_files() on directories and assumes everything else to be a file to be tested. It calls the plan() function for you (one test for each file), so you can't have already called "plan".

If @entries is empty or not passed, the function finds all POD files in files in the blib directory if it exists, or the lib directory if not. A POD file matches the conditions specified below in "all_pod_files".

If you're testing a module, just make a t/pod.t:

use Test::More;
eval "use Test::Pod 1.00";
plan skip_all => "Test::Pod 1.00 required for testing POD" if $@;
all_pod_files_ok();

Returns true if all pod files are ok, or false if any fail.

Returns a list of all the POD files in @dirs and in directories below. If no directories are passed, it defaults to blib if blib exists, or else lib if not. Skips any files in CVS, .svn, .git and similar directories. See %Test::Pod::ignore_dirs for a list of them.

A POD file is:

  • Any file that ends in .pl, .PL, .pm, .pod, .psgi or .t.
  • Any file that has a first line with a shebang and "perl" on it.
  • Any file that ends in .bat and has a first line with "--*-Perl-*--" on it.

The order of the files returned is machine-dependent. If you want them sorted, you'll have to sort them yourself.

This module is managed in an open GitHub repository http://github.com/perl-pod/test-pod/. Feel free to fork and contribute, or to clone <git://github.com/perl-pod/test-pod.git> and send patches!

Found a bug? Please post http://github.com/perl-pod/test-pod/issues or email <mailto:bug-test-pod@rt.cpan.org> a report!

Current maintainer.
Maintainer emeritus.
Original author.

Thanks brian d foy for the original code, and to these folks for contributions:

  • Andy Lester
  • David E. Wheeler
  • Paul Miller
  • Peter Edwards
  • Luca Ferrari

Copyright 2006-2010, Andy Lester; 2010-2015 David E. Wheeler. Some Rights Reserved.

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

2023-07-25 perl v5.38.0