perldigp - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

perldig - Dig up keywords in the local Perl documentation

SYNOPSIS

# Update the index (required before first start)
perldig -u

# Search for a keyword
perldig keyword(s)

DESCRIPTION

When using "perldig" for the first time, a new index needs to be created. Just call

$ perldig -u

and everything happens automatically: A crawler will detect locally installed Perl
documentation pages, rummage through the POD and index them. When this initial run has
been completed, "perldig" is ready to process search requests:

$ perldig frobnicate

1) pod/perlguts.pod 2) pod/perlxstut.pod 3) pod/perlnewmod.pod

Enter number of choice:

The command above shows a search for the keyword "frobnicate". Yes, that's a word used in
the Perl documentation! It shows three hits and asks the user to enter a number between 1
and 3 to open the selected documentation page in a pager program (typically "less"). In
there, an in-text search for the expression can be started by using the "/" (slash)
command.

If two or more keywords are given, the search will yield pages that contain all of them.
When searching for phrases, please include quotes (make sure to quote the quotes so the
shell doesn't eat them):

$ perldig '"floating point"'

The underlying swish-e search engine also understands expressions connected via AND and
OR:

$ perldig "'floating point' AND approximate AND 'real number'"

To keep the index up to date, it is probably a good idea to run a cronjob every morning:

00 4 * * * /usr/bin/perldig -u >/dev/null 2>&1

If you can read German, please check out this article in the "Linux- Magazin", where this
script was originally published:

http://www.linux-magazin.de/Artikel/ausgabe/2003/10/perl/perl.html

EXAMPLES

# Update/create the index
$ perldig -u

$ perldig frobnicate

1) pod/perlguts.pod 2) pod/perlxstut.pod 3) pod/perlnewmod.pod

Enter number of choice: 1
[ ... perlguts man page shows ... ]

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