a problem with loadable formatter class of perldoc

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

Starting from this morning, everytime that I try to read documentations from perldoc,
i receive the following error:

Can't find any loadable formatter class in Pod::Perldoc::Toman Pod::Pe
+rldoc::Toman Pod::Perldoc::ToMan Pod::Perldoc::ToMAN Pod::Simple::man
+ Pod::Simple::man Pod::Simple::Man Pod::Simple::MAN Pod::man Pod::man
+ Pod::Man Pod::MAN Pod::Perldoc::Totext Pod::Perldoc::Totext Pod::Per
+ldoc::ToText Pod::Perldoc::ToTEXT Pod::Simple::text Pod::Simple::text
+ Pod::Simple::Text Pod::Simple::TEXT Pod::text Pod::text Pod::Text Po
+d::TEXT Pod::Perldoc::ToPod?!
Aborting at /usr/share/perl/5.8/Pod/Perldoc.pm line 512.
[download]

I found some of this modules in Perl related directory, but
maybe i don't understand the right meaning of this error.
Some informations about my system may help to clarify my problem:

This is the output of perldoc -v:

Perldoc v3.14, under perl v5.008007 for linux
[download]

I use debian sarge with a 2.6.8-2-686 kernel.

Maybe I should give other informations about my system but i don't
known which ones are needed, so any suggestions are very appreciate.
I really have no idea about how to solve this problem.

Comment on a problem with loadable formatter class of perldoc Select or Download Code

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Re: a problem with loadable formatter class of perldoc by glasswalk3r (Friar) on Jan 19, 2006 at 12:06 UTC
I may be incorrect, but looks like Debian Sarge has specific packages related to provide Perl online documentation. You should check if those packages are available at your Debian box. Alceu Rodrigues de Freitas Junior --------------------------------- "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Sir Winston Churchill	[reply]
Re: a problem with loadable formatter class of perldoc by Sioln (Sexton) on Jan 19, 2006 at 10:48 UTC
This means that perl could not find some module, while tried to execute perldoc. Check if your user processes can access to this modules (files). In this situation at first I suggest to reinstall perl. (Because I don't know what ENV params requires to perl, and ,possible, the reinstallation will bring it in right place.)	[reply]
Re: a problem with loadable formatter class of perldoc by turo (Friar) on Jan 19, 2006 at 10:45 UTC
Sounds like a problem not exclusively related to perl ... For example, if you have a partition used to be mounted at '/usr/share' directory; and that partition was not mounted (filesystem errors or so), you will have a problem ... ... Rare thing. Good Luck! turo `perl -Te 'print map { chr((ord)-((10,20,2,7)[$i++])) } split //,"turo"'`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: a problem with loadable formatter class of perldoc by poulhs (Beadle) on Dec 14, 2010 at 21:32 UTC
Although this is an ancient posting, I think that it may still be a problem for some people today... my $.10: If `perldoc` is run as `root`, it will try to drop priviliges - by changing UID to `nobody` or `-2`, normally this means that the perl-libraries (at least lib/Pod/...) and the documentation `root` is likely to read, must be public readable... That would explain the diagnostics, but the sollution may vary, here are some suggestions on howto read `perldoc perldoc`: `su $LOGNAME perldoc perldoc` `chmod -R a+rX /perl-install-tree; perldoc perldoc` `man perldoc` you are like to have several others solutions/workarounds	[reply] [d/l] [select]