Text::MetaMarkup INSTALLATION To install this module type the following: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install Or use CPANPLUS to automate the process. Module documentation: NAME Text::MetaMarkup - Simple structured POD/Wiki-ish markup SYNOPSIS use Text::MetaMarkup::HTML; print Text::MetaMarkup::HTML->new->parse(file => $filename); DESCRIPTION MetaMarkup was inspired by POD, Wiki and PerlMonks. I created it because I wanted a simple format to write documents for my site quickly. A document consists of paragraphs. Paragraphs are separated by blank lines, which may contain whitespace. A paragraph can be prefixed with "tag:", which should correspond to an HTML block level tag like "h1", "p" or "pre". Paragraphs cannot be nested. Paragraphs that start with "#" are ignored. In a paragraph, inline tags are used with curly braces. That is: "{i:foo}" is "foo" in HTML. Inline tags can be nested. Characters can be escaped using a backslash character. Never are escaped characters special: "\n" is "n" in the result, not a newline. Links are written as "[url|text]". Inline tags can be used in the text part. SUBCLASSING Do not use Text::MetaMarkup directly. It is intended to be subclassed. Most people will just use Text::MetaMarkup::HTML, but you can create your own. Packages in Text::MetaMarkup::AddOn:: are special. They don't subclass Text::MetaMarkup but used by subclasses (using @ISA ("use base")) to provide additional tags. Text::MetaMarkup::HTML::JuerdNL is used by my own homepage and is included in the distribution as an example. METHODS Provided by Text::MetaMarkup "new" Constructor method. Takes a list of key/value pairs which is used to fill the hash that gets blessed. These values are currently not used, but could be used by the subclasses. "parse" Takes two arguments. Either "file" and a filename, "fh" and a filehandle or "string" and a string. Returns the converted document. "parse_document" Takes one argument: a string of paragraphs. Returns the converted document. "parse_paragraph" Takes one argument: a string of text, possibly with inline tags. Returns the converted paragraph. "parse_link" Takes one argument: The link (without square brackets). Returns the converted link. "text" Takes one argument: Plain text. Unescapes the text and returns it. To be provided by a subclass "escape" Takes one argument: text. Should return the escaped version of that text. "paragraph" Takes two arguments: tag and text. Should return the converted form. "inline" Takes two arguments: tag and text. Should return the converted form. "link" Takes two arguments: a hashref and text. The hashref contains "href", "scheme" and "rest". Should return the converted form. If the link provided is "[http://juerd.nl/|Juerd's homepage]", then "link" gets in @_: "{ href => 'http://juerd.nl/', scheme => 'http', rest => '//juerd.nl/' }, 'Juerd\'s homepage'". Special methods If paragraph tag "foo" is encountered, "paragraph_foo" is tried before "paragraph". If inline tag "foo" is encountered, "inline_foo" is tried before "inline". If link scheme "foo" is encountered, "link_foo" is tried before "link". If the tag or scheme specific method exists, the general one is not called. Furthermore, a subclass can implement any of "start_document", "end_document", "start_paragraph" and "end_paragraph". Parapgraph start/end handlers get the tag as their only argument. The value returned by any of these methods is used in the result document. A subclass should try to format paragraphs that start with "*" as bulleted lists. LICENSE There is no license. This software was released into the public domain. Do with it what you want, but on your own risk. The author disclaims any responsibility. AUTHOR Juerd Waalboer SEE ALSO Text::MetaMarkup::HTML