WHAT IS THIS?

 =============

 This software distribution contains the following packages for using

 Perl5 "pod" (Plain Old Documentation).  See the "perlpod" and "perlsyn"

 manual pages from your Perl5 distribution for more information about pod.

 DISCLAIMER

 ----------

 This package is considered to be legacy - it has been superseded by 

 Pod::Simple which brings more robustness, unicode and various other

 benefits. If you are building anything new, please consider using

 Pod::Simple, not this package.

 Pod::Parser

 -----------

   The Perl5 module "Pod::Parser", which provides a base class for

   parsing and selecting sections of POD documentation from an input

   stream.  Please see the POD documentation for this module (embedded

   in the file "Parser.pm") for more details.

 Pod::Select

 -----------

   The Perl5 module "Pod::Select", which provides a subclass of

   Pod::Parser and an exported function named "podselect()" to dump

   selected sections of raw pod documentation from an input stream.

   Please see the POD documentation for this module (embedded in the

   file "Select.pm") and Pod::Parser for more details.

 Pod::PlainText

 --------------

   A replacement for the Perl5 module "Pod::Text" and the corresponding

   "pod2text()" function. It is derived from the Pod::Parser class.

   Please see the POD documentation for this module and Pod::Parser for

   more details (embedded in the file "PlainText.pm").

   *NOTE*: As of perl 5.00_58, Pod::PlainText has been re-written by

   Russ Allbery, and has been renamed to Pod::Text in the core Perl

   distribution (replacing the previous implementation of Pod::Text).

   The Pod::PlainText module is still provided with Pod::Parser on CPAN

   solely for backward compatibility. Once Perl 5.6 becomes the latest

   stable version of Perl, then Pod::PlainText will be removed from the

   Pod-Parser distribution!!

 Pod::InputObjects

 -----------------

   Some input objects needed by Pod::Parser, and for advanced users of

   Pod::Parser that need more about a command besides its name and text.

 Pod::ParseUtils

 ---------------

   A module with several object-oriented helpers for POD parsing and

   processing. Probably the most important is Pod::Hyperlink for

   parsing and expanding POD hyperlinks L<...>.

 AUTHORS/CONTRIBUTORS

 ====================

 Marek Rouchal  <marekr@cpan.org>

 Brad Appleton  <bradapp@enteract.com>  http://www.enteract.com/~bradapp/

 Russ Allbery   <rra@standford.edu>

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 ================

 * Kenneth Albanowski for his extensive assistance with the design and

   interface of Pod::Parser.

 * Steven McDougall for his help and patience with re-writing the manpage

   for Pod::Usage and Pod::Parser.

 * Achim Bonnet for helping me get the regression test-suite into a form

   that works with 'make test' generated by MakeMaker

 * Nick Ing-Simmons, for his considerable time and effort spent trying to

   make pre-release versions of Pod::Parser work with code and giving me

   feedback on the implementation and design.

 * Russ Allbery for re-writing Pod::PlainText from scratch and getting it

   to replace Pod::Text in the core for perl 5.00_58!

 COPY/REUSE POLICY

 =================

 Except where explicitly stated otherwise within the contents of a file,

 this distribution and all the files in it are Copyright (C) 1996-1999

 by Brad Appleton.  All rights reserved.

 Pod-Parser is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it

 under the terms of the Artistic License distributed with Perl version

 5.000 or (at your option) any later version. Please refer to the

 Artistic License that came with your Perl distribution for more

 details. If your version of Perl was not distributed under the

 terms of the Artistic License, than you may distribute Pod-Parser

 under the same terms as Perl itself.

 The Artistic License should have been included in your distribution of

 Perl. It resides in the file named "Artistic" at the top-level of the

 Perl source tree (where Perl was downloaded/unpacked -- ask your

 system administrator if you dont know where this is).  Alternatively,

 the current version of the Artistic License distributed with Perl can

 be viewed on-line on the World-Wide Web (WWW) from the following URL:

      http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html

 The latest version of Perl can be obtained on the World-Wide web (WWW)

 from the following URL:

      http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/latest.tar.gz

 DISCLAIMER pt 2

 ===============

 This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but

 is provided "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either expressed or

 implied, INCLUDING, without limitation, the implied warranties of

 MERCHANTABILITY and FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

 The ENTIRE RISK as to the quality and performance of the software

 IS WITH YOU (the holder of the software).  Should the software prove

 defective, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR

 CORRECTION.

 IN NO EVENT WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY CREATE,

 MODIFY, OR DISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE BE LIABLE OR RESPONSIBLE TO YOU OR TO

 ANY OTHER ENTITY FOR ANY KIND OF DAMAGES (no matter how awful - not even

 if they arise from known or unknown flaws in the software).

 Please refer to the Artistic License that came with your Perl

 distribution for more details.

 CONTENTS

 ========

 Please see the file named "MANIFEST" which should have been included

 in the Pod-Parser distribution.

 REQUIREMENTS

 ============

 * Perl version 5.005 or later

 * File::Spec from CPAN (already bundled in Perl 5.005)

   at least version 0.82, previous ones lack some functions needed here

 BUILDING & INSTALLING

 =====================

 Please see the perl "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" manpage for how to build and

 install using the Makefile.PL template.  In a nutshell, simply typing:

      perl Makefile.PL

 should build a Makefile with the usual targets like "all", "clean",

 "test", and "install".

 BUGS

 ====

 Please use the CPAN bug tracking to report bugs:

 http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Pod-Parser

 TO DO

 =====

 Please see the file named "TODO" which should have been included

 in the Pod-Parser distribution.

 HISTORY

 =======

 Please see the file named "CHANGES" which should have been included

 in the Pod-Parser distribution.