What exactly is happening? I'm not sure how familiar you are with perldoc, or even what OS you're using. It took me a while to figure out how to use perldoc on Windows. It isn't a search tool, you have to know what doc you want to read. For example, "perldoc File::Spec" returns the doc for the File::Spec module, but "perldoc while" doesn't find anything, because while doesn't have it's own pod.

In many cases searching perlfunc will return you're looking for. For example, perldoc -f chomp gives you help on the chomp function. Use perldoc perldoc for information on perldoc options.

It's probably best if you browse the online versions of the docs and become familiar with the way things are organized. I use Active State's version extensively. There are others out there, like the documentation on perl.com.