$0 in perl pod, not expanding to script name

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

I have a perl script containing some brief documentation in pod format. Normally (or at least outside of perlpod) $0 is the script name, but in perlpod, $0 is output literally as '$0'.

Is there any way I can dynamically access the current script name inside perlpod? I'm returning to perl after a few years on PHP & can vaguely remember doing something similar in the past.

Comment on $0 in perl pod, not expanding to script name

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Re: $0 in perl pod, not expanding to script name by tobyink (Canon) on Jul 16, 2018 at 08:26 UTC
Pod is a markup language, not a programming language. While markup languages can sometimes have things like macros and variables in them, pod doesn't. It's super simple. So, long story short, pod doesn't have what you want. However, you could use a templating module to output your pod from a template, and use that to do variable substitution. toby döt ink	[reply]
Re: $0 in perl pod, not expanding to script name by thanos1983 (Parson) on Jul 16, 2018 at 08:01 UTC
Hello spatterson, Can you provide us a small sample of script that replicates the case that you are mentioning? `#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; =pod =head1 DESCRIPTION This script can have 2 parameters. The name or address of a machine and a command. It will execute the command on the given machine and print the output to the screen. =cut print "Here comes the name of the script ... $0\n"; __END__ $ perl test.pl Here comes the name of the script ... test.pl` [download] Looking forward to your update. Seeking for Perl wisdom...on the process of learning...not there...yet!	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: $0 in perl pod, not expanding to script name by spatterson (Pilgrim) on Jul 16, 2018 at 08:08 UTC
Stripped down to the minimum, my code is this: I simply want the first $0 (inside perlpod) to output the script name =pod Usage: C<$0> =cut $arg = shift(); if (defined($arg) && $arg eq '-h') { print `pod2text $0`; } [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: $0 in perl pod, not expanding to script name by hippo (Archbishop) on Jul 16, 2018 at 08:27 UTC
In that case, just post-process it: =pod Usage: C<$0> =cut $arg = shift(); if (defined($arg) && $arg eq '-h') { for (`pod2text $0`) { s/\$0/$0/; print; } } [download]	[reply] [d/l]