Which version of Perl is this? I seem to recall a fix for this in 5.8.0 or 5.8.1. I just tried with 5.8.2 and it converted the directive appropriately.

Really? From what I see it only html-escapes the characters, which is a step in the right direction, but not a solution. The following patch ought to do it (even though depod ain't perfect)

--- G:\perls\5.8.2\lib\pod\html.pm      2003-11-06 02:10:38.796875000 
+-0800
+++ C:\perl\lib\pod\html.pm     2004-01-07 00:18:19.984375000 -0800
@@ -400,8 +400,10 @@
            for (my $i = 0; $i < @poddata; $i++) {
                if ($poddata[$i] =~ /^=head1\s*NAME\b/m) {
                    for my $para ( @poddata[$i, $i+1] ) {
-                       last TITLE_SEARCH
-                           if ($Title) = $para =~ /(\S+\s+-+.*\S)/s;
+                           if( ($Title) = $para =~ /(\S+\s+-+.*\S)/s 
+){
+                    $Title = depod($Title);# PodMaster
+                    last TITLE_SEARCH;
+                }
                    }
                }

@@ -411,7 +413,11 @@
     if (!$Title and $Podfile =~ /\.pod\z/) {
        # probably a split pod so take first =head[12] as title
        for (my $i = 0; $i < @poddata; $i++) {
-           last if ($Title) = $poddata[$i] =~ /^=head[12]\s*(.*)/;
+           if( ($Title) = $poddata[$i] =~ /^=head[12]\s*(.*)/ ){
+            $Title = depod($Title);# PodMaster
+            last;
+        }
+
        }
        warn "adopted '$Title' as title for $Podfile\n"
            if $Verbose and $Title;
[download]

Here's a patch against perl-current

--- html.pm    2003-12-12 16:29:00.000000000 -0800
+++ newHtml.pm    2004-01-07 00:31:04.453125000 -0800
@@ -415,8 +415,9 @@
          for (my $i = 0; $i < @poddata; $i++) {
         if ($poddata[$i] =~ /^=head1\s*NAME\b/m) {
              for my $para ( @poddata[$i, $i+1] ) {
-            last TITLE_SEARCH
-                if ($Title) = $para =~ /(\S+\s+-+.*\S)/s;
+                if( ($Title) = $para =~ /(\S+\s+-+.*\S)/s ){
+                    $Title = depod($Title);# PodMaster
+                    last TITLE_SEARCH;
             }
         }
 
@@ -426,7 +427,10 @@
     if (!$Title and $Podfile =~ /\.pod\z/) {
     # probably a split pod so take first =head[12] as title
      for (my $i = 0; $i < @poddata; $i++) {
-        last if ($Title) = $poddata[$i] =~ /^=head[12]\s*(.*)/;
+        if( ($Title) = $poddata[$i] =~ /^=head[12]\s*(.*)/ ){
+            $Title = depod($Title);# PodMaster
+            last;
+        }
     }
     warn "adopted '$Title' as title for $Podfile\n"
         if $Verbose and $Title;
[download]

MJD says "you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!"

I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6.x and 5.8.x -- I take requests (README).

** The third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

Whaddaya know, I'm doing this in 5.6 (I use ActiveState's Perl Development Kit to wrap my app up in a nice little (?) .exe file, and I forget whether I have to pay big bucks to upgrade it for 5.8.) That should be the ticket though.

Thanks,
Brig

UPDATE

I took a quick look at the PAR slideshow. Thanks for the pointer.

In the meantime, while upgrading Pod::Html should fix this particular problem, the deeper problem is my avoiding the problem of getting --title=title to work. On first reading the pod2html man page, my attempts at following the instructions failed, but considering the documentation from Pod::Html and its additional option of --backlink I realized that I wanted an automated (vs. command-line) solution to my problem of generating both .htm and .txt files anyway. And that another crack at --title was worthwhile.

Thus, I can put the following script in a folder that contains a program's *_Readme.pod file and put the package file someplace accessible like E:/aa/perl/lib. Double-clicking the script from Windows Explorer rebuilds the .htm and .txt files from whatever I've done with my .pod file. And now I get all those little 'Back to Top' links. :-)

# Creates Readme.htm and Readme.txt files from Readme.pod

use strict;
push @INC, 'E:/aa/perl/lib';
require 'podtools.pl';


my $pod_filename = 'BW_Readme.pod';   # filename of pod input 

my $htm_filename = 'BW_Readme.htm';   # filename of htm output 
my $title = 'BW123321™ Readme';       # title for the htm window;
                                      # ™ is actually the (TM) symbol

my $txt_filename = 'BW_Readme.txt';   # filename of txt output


podtools::pod2_htm_txt(
        $pod_filename,
        $htm_filename,
        $title,
        $txt_filename,
                );
[download]

and the podtools.pl package file in my E:/aa/perl/lib folder:

package podtools;

use strict;
use Pod::Html;
use Pod::Text;

sub pod2_htm_txt {
    # Creates htm and txt files from a given pod file and htm title

    my (
        $pod_filename,
        $htm_filename,
        $title,
        $txt_filename,
            ) = @_;


    # Build the '.htm' file

    pod2html(
        "--infile=$pod_filename",
        "--outfile=$htm_filename",
        "--title=$title",
        '--backlink=Back to Top',     # implants backlink after =head1
            );



    # Build the '.txt' file

    my $parser = Pod::Text->new (
                        loose => 1, # prints blank lines after =head1
                        width => 78,
                        quotes => 'none',
                            );

    # Read POD from first file and write to second.
    $parser->parse_from_file ( $pod_filename, $txt_filename );

}

1;
[download]

You don't have to pay for free things ===> PAR. Also, you don't have to upgrade perl to upgrade Pod::Html.

MJD says "you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!"

I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6.x and 5.8.x -- I take requests (README).

** The third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.