johnguillory has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Howdy Cowboys:

I can't get the "-sections" option to work when targeting pod sections. See abstracted code below. Thanks for insight. 

use Pod::usage;
use Getopt::Long;
GetOptions("help");

=head1 SYNOPSIS
         here's the main usage stuff

=head1 SPECIAL
        special usage stuff here...

=cut

# This prints SYNOPSIS above just fine as expected:
pod2usage(-verbose => 0) if ($opt_help);  

# This only prints the '-message' and nothing else:
pod2usage({-verbose = > 99,
           -sections => [qw(SPECIAL)],
           -message => "Here's special stuff...\n";
          });

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Re: pod::usage "-sections" not working
by toolic (Bishop) on Apr 25, 2013 at 17:16 UTC
    After fixing several syntax errors in your code, I get -special to work by adding a blank line after each =head1 line: 
    use warnings;
use strict;
use Pod::Usage;
use Getopt::Long;

GetOptions("help");

=head1 SYNOPSIS

         here's the main usage stuff

=head1 SPECIAL

        special usage stuff here...

=cut

# This prints SYNOPSIS above just fine as expected:
#pod2usage(-verbose => 0) if ($opt_help);  

# This only prints the '-message' and nothing else:
pod2usage({-verbose => 99,
           -sections => [qw(SPECIAL)],
           -message => "Here's special stuff...\n",
          });

__END__

Here's special stuff...

Special:
            special usage stuff here...

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    You should use podchecker on your code: 

    *** WARNING: empty section in previous paragraph at line ... in file .
+..

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      Weird...I've copied your code and still getting just the message and not the pod section "special". No doubt I must be overlooking something simple. I'll look some more. Thanks toolic. J

[reply]
        If what you say is based on accurate copy/test of toolic's code, then next you'd best tell us about any and ALL untoward outputs.

        Better yet, you might want to walk thru your/toolic's code with the debugger and tell us what that discloses.


        If you didn't program your executable by toggling in binary, it wasn't really programming!

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        It should be something simple. Try this for the SPECIAL section: 
        #!/usr/bin/perl

BEGIN {
    $|  = 1;
    $^W = 1;
}

use strict;
use warnings;
use Pod::Usage;
use Getopt::Long;

my $help = 0;

pod2usage(2) unless GetOptions('help|?' => \$help);

my $verbose      = 99;
my $message_text = "special usage stuff here...\n";
my $sections     = 'SPECIAL';

pod2usage(
    -verbose  => $verbose,
    -message  => $message_text,
    -sections => $sections,
); 

__END__

=head1 SYNOPSIS
    
    here's the main usage stuff

=head1 SPECIAL
    
    special usage stuff here...

=cut

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Re: pod::usage "-sections" not working
by Anonymous Monk on Apr 26, 2013 at 07:06 UTC

    FYI, this is how your failing pod is parsed 

    $ perl -MPod::Simple::DumpAsXML -e  " Pod::Simple::DumpAsXML->filter(s
+hift)->any_errata_seen" udge
<Document start_line="5">
  <head1 start_line="5">
    SYNOPSIS here&#39;s the main usage stuff
  </head1>
  <head1 start_line="8">
    SPECIAL special usage stuff here...
  </head1>
</Document>

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    Corrected pod, like toolic wrote, with the head sections being one word strings :) 

    $ perl -MPod::Simple::DumpAsXML -e  " Pod::Simple::DumpAsXML->filter(s
+hift)->any_errata_seen" udge
<Document start_line="5">
  <head1 start_line="5">
    SYNOPSIS
  </head1>
  <VerbatimFormatted start_line="7" xml:space="preserve">
         here&#39;s the main usage stuff
  </VerbatimFormatted>
  <head1 start_line="9">
    SPECIAL
  </head1>
  <VerbatimFormatted start_line="11" xml:space="preserve">
        special usage stuff here...
  </VerbatimFormatted>
</Document>

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    In pod, empty line is paragraph separator, perlpod, perlpodspec

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