NAME Pod::Constant - source constants from POD to avoid repetition VERSION version 0.1 SYNOPSIS In your POD: =head1 DESCRIPTION The maximum number of flarns is X<$MAX_FLARNS=>4,096. In your code: use Pod::Constant qw($MAX_FLARNS); # Use $MAX_FLARNS all over the place DESCRIPTION It is often neccessary to refer to 'default values' or important constant values in your POD, but then you have to put them in your code as well, and they can easily get out of sync. "use" this module and you can import variables from the POD directly, avoiding repetition. The lazy may "use Pod::Constant ':all'" to import any and all variables from POD. USAGE The "X<...>" syntax allows you to place variable names next to any use of a constant in your POD, e.g. The maximum number of hops is X<$MAX_HOPS=>4,096. These "X<...>" hints are rendered as an empty string by POD readers, but can be seen by "Pod::Constant". The value following the "X<...>" construct may be: * A quoted string (single, double or backticks) - quotes will be removed. Special characters (e.g. "\n") are not treated specially. * An unquoted number. Commas and trailing punctuation are removed. * An unquoted string. Trailing punctuation is removed, and the string will be read up to the first whitespace character. Not recommended but works OK for file paths, etc. Whitespace is ignored, so for example "X<$foo = > 123" is permissible. "Trailing punctuation" is defined as the ASCII characters '.', ',', ':', ';', '!' and '?'. LIMITATIONS Currently only scalar values are supported. AUTHOR Richard Harris COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Richard Harris. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.