Device for reading perldoc

[Daniel Perrett]

If you specifically want pdf, I use xhtml2pdf (aka pisa) to convert
markdown files to pdf via HTML. Starting with markdown, use
Text::Markdown to make some HTML, insert it into an HTML template with
the perl template engine of your choice, then call system or somesuch
with pisa and the html file you've just output. Presumably, you can do
the same with POD, as I think it has HTML converters.

On the other hand, if you just want an ereader experience and don't
need the pdf, stop once you've got to HTML and stick it in your
browser. The question then is what devices support perl? Well, there's
a project to put perl on Android; I've tried it out but couldn't work
out how to access it in a straightforward command-line environment. I
think their goal is more to be able to deploy perl scripts which hook
into Android APIs. The Nokia N900 has a default install of 5.8, but
various limitations (perl-doc package not installed by default is
surmountable, but some others like lack of CPAN are harder), but you
can get a debian environment for it that works ok, it's just a pain to
start up.

Alternatively, if you are ok depending on a data connection, don't
forget you can ssh into somewhere fully-featured to do the difficult
stuff.

Sadly, though, CPAN might not be the app ecosystem that device and OS
vendors are thinking most about, so I share your hope that Ubuntu
phone will a) run recent perl, git, gcc, etc. and b) actually happen.

Daniel

On 5 January 2013 18:04, gvim <gvimrc at gmail.com> wrote:
> I realised after posting that Perl is ideal for converting between formats
> so generating PDF from Pod should be no problem. However, I suppose I'm
> really looking for something which will also give me a command line + Perl +
> bash. Ah well, guess it's a bit early for that. Maybe when Ubuntu mobile
> hits the tablets?
>
> gvim
>
>
> On 04/01/2013 20:56, Peter Sergeant wrote:
>>
>> On Friday, January 4, 2013, gvim wrote:
>>
>>> Is there currently a reader/device which is suitable for reading
>>> both PDFs and perldoc, ie. can install Perl + modules?
>>>
>>> gvim
>>>
>>
>> This sounds a bit like an x/y problem.
>>
>> What are you trying achieve? If there are certain documents available
>> via perldoc currently, a conversion step (and a willingness to use
>> one) would probably allow almost all readers...
>>
>> -P
>>
>