I like to browse CPAN. Usually when I fetch a new module I extract the code of the modules SYNOPSIS POD section to a small test script and then toy with it.

For most Modules the code is executable with a few modifications. Sometimes one don't even have to modify anything.

For these Modules I wrote a small Perl/Shell script perlsyno. Calling the script is a straightforward "perlsyno CPAN::Module". This extracts the perltidied and unindented code from the Synopsis.

#!/bin/bash
# usage: perlsyno [-e] CPAN::Module

function syno {

perldoc -tT $1 |\
perl -0777 -ne 'print /^SYNOPSIS(.*?)^\w/ms;'|\
perltidy -i 0

}

[ $# -gt  0 ] || exit 1

if [ "$1" = "-e" ]
then
    shift
    [ $# -gt  0 ] || exit 1
    syno $1 | perl -0777 -ne 'eval $_'
    exit 0
fi

syno $1
[download]

The optional switch -e can be used to execute the code directly.

$ perlsyno -e Acme::Terror
Current terror alert level is: ELEVATED
[download]