in reply to Re: Parsing Pod::Text
in thread Parsing Pod::Text

There's something to be said about what the user expects. On posix, I expect all cli stuff to roughly do the following when something goes wrong..
  1. If an internal error occurred, I don't see the manual or usage examples, I see what the error message is, the thing really dies out.
  2. If there's a usage error, or a missing argument or I see the -h or --help flag, I expect to see the brief usage statement.. such as:
    command-name [OPTIONS].. OTHERARGS.. Brief one sentence description of command usefulness. -h help -v version -o other command flag -a string this one takes an arg For more info, try 'man command-name'
    And that's it, period.. no manual info this far. Just a brief warning maybe, and usage. Maybe not even usage if you don't want to - unless they ask for -h(elp), but an error.

    See the 'locate' command for example of this, try 'locate', and you get warning, try 'locate -h' and you get brief usage, try 'man locate' and you get the whole enchillada.

  3. If the user specifially request the manual- then I show the manual, all of it- that pertains to that command.