/ 
HTML-FromText-1.004
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/ HTML::FromText

NAME

HTML::FromText - mark up text as HTML

SYNOPSIS

use HTML::FromText;
print text2html($text, urls => 1, paras => 1, headings => 1);

DESCRIPTION

The text2html function marks up plain text as HTML. By default it expands tabs and converts HTML metacharacters into the corresponding entities. More complicated transformations, such as splitting the text into paragraphs or marking up bulleted lists, can be carried out by setting the appropriate options.

SUMMARY OF OPTIONS

These options always apply:

metachars    Convert HTML metacharacters to entity references
urls         Convert URLs to links
email        Convert email addresses to links
bold         Mark up words with *asterisks* in bold
underline    Mark up words with _underscores_ as underlined

You can then choose to treat the text according to one of these options:

pre          Treat text as preformatted
lines        Treat text as line-oriented
paras        Treat text as paragraph-oriented

(If more than one of these is specified, pre takes precedence over lines which takes precedence over paras.) The following option applies when the lines option is specified:

spaces       Preserve spaces from the original text

The following options apply when the paras option is specified:

blockparas   Mark up indented paragraphs as block quote
blockquotes  Ditto, also preserve lines from original
blockcode    Ditto, also preserve spaces from original
bullets      Mark up bulleted paragraphs as unordered list
headings     Mark up headings
numbers      Mark up numbered paragraphs as ordered list
tables       Mark up tables
title        Mark up first paragraph as level 1 heading

OPTIONS

blockparas
blockquotes
blockcode

These options cause to text2html to spot paragraphs where every line begins with whitespace, and mark them up as block quotes. If more than one of these options is specified, blockparas takes precedence over blockcode, which takes precedence over blockquotes. All three options are ignored unless the paras option is also set.

The blockparas option marks up the paragraph as a block quote with no other changes. For example,

Turing wrote,

    I propose to consider the question,
    "Can machines think?"

becomes

<P>Turing wrote,</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>I propose to consider the question,
&quot;Can machines think?&quot;</BLOCKQUOTE>

The blockquotes option preserves line breaks in the original text. For example,

From "The Waste Land":

    Phlebas the Phoenecian, a fortnight dead,
    Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

becomes

<P>From &quot;The Waste Land&quot;:</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Phlebas the Phoenecian, a fortnight dead,<BR>
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell</BLOCKQUOTE>

The blockcode option preserves line breaks and spaces in the original text and renders the paragraph in a fixed-width font. For example:

Here's how to output numbers with commas:

    sub commify {
      local $_ = shift;
      1 while s/^(-?\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/;
      $_;
    }

becomes

<P>Here's how to output numbers with commas:</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><TT>sub&nbsp;commify&nbsp;{<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;local&nbsp;$_&nbsp;=&nbsp;shift;<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;while&nbsp;s/^(-?\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/;<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;$_;<BR>
}</TT></BLOCKQUOTE>
bold

Words surrounded with asterisks are marked up in bold, so *abc* becomes <B>abc</B>.

bullets

Spots bulleted paragraphs (beginning with optional whitespace, an asterisk or hyphen, and whitespace) and marks them up as an unordered list. Bulleted paragraphs don't have to be separated by blank lines. For example,

Shopping list:

  * apples
  * pears

becomes

<P>Shopping list:</P>
<UL><LI><P>apples</P>
<LI><P>pears</P>
</UL>

This option is ignored unless the paras option is set.

email

Spots email addresses in the text and converts them to links. For example

Mail me at web@perl.com.

becomes

Mail me at <TT><A HREF="mailto:web@perl.com">web@perl.com</A></TT>.
headings

Spots headings (paragraphs starting with numbers) and marks them up as headings of the appropriate level. For example,

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

1.1.1 Previous work

2. Conclusion

becomes

<H1>1. Introduction</H1>
<H2>1.1 Background</H2>
<H3>1.1.1 Previous work</H3>
<H1>2. Conclusion</H1>

This option is ignored unless the paras option is set.

lines

Formats the text so as to preserve line breaks. For example,

Line 1
Line 2

becomes

Line 1<BR>
Line 2

If two or more of the options pre, lines and paras are set, then pre takes precedence over lines, which takes precedence over paras.

metachars

Converts HTML metacharacters into their corresponding entity references. Ampersand (&) becomes &amp;, less than (<) becomes &lt;, greater than (>) becomes &gt;, and quote (") becomes &quot;. This option is 1 by default.

numbers

Spots numbered paragraphs (beginning with whitespace, digits, an optional period/parenthesis/bracket, and whitespace) and marks them up as an ordered list. Numbered paragraphs don't have to be separated by blank lines. For example,

To do:

   1. Write thesis
   2. Submit it
   3. Celebrate

becomes

<P>To do:</P>
<OL><LI VALUE="1"><P>Write thesis</P>
<LI VALUE="2"><P>Submit it</P>
<LI VALUE="3"><P>Celebrate</P>
</OL>

This option is ignored unless the paras option is set.

paras

Format the text into paragraphs. Paragraphs are separated by one or more blank lines. For example,

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

becomes

<P>Paragraph 1</P>
<P>Paragraph 2</P>

If two or more of the options pre, lines and paras are set, then pre takes precedence over lines, which takes precedence over paras.

pre

Wrap the text in a <PRE> element. For example,

preformatted
text

becomes

<PRE>preformatted
text</PRE>

If two or more of the options pre, lines and paras are set, then pre takes precedence over lines, which takes precedence over paras.

spaces

Preserves spaces throughout the text. For example,

Line 1
 Line  2
  Line   3

becomes

Line 1
&nbsp;Line&nbsp;&nbsp;2
&nbsp;&nbsp;Line&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3

This option is ignored unless the lines option is set.

tables

Spots tables and marks them up appropriately. Columns must be separated by two or more spaces (this prevents accidental incorrect recognition of a paragraph where interword spaces happen to line up). If there are two or more rows in a paragraph and all rows share the same set of (two or more) columns, the paragraph is assumed to be a table. For example

-e  File exists.
-z  File has zero size.
-s  File has nonzero size (returns size).

becomes

<P><TABLE>
<TR><TD>-e</TD><TD>File exists.</TD></TR>
<TR><TD>-z</TD><TD>File has zero size.</TD></TR>
<TR><TD>-s</TD><TD>File has nonzero size (returns size).</TD></TR>
</TABLE></P>

text2html guesses for each column whether it is intended to be left, centre or right aligned.

This option is ignored unless the paras option is set.

title

Formats the first paragraph of the text as a first-level heading. For example,

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

becomes

<H1>Paragraph 1</H1>
<P>Paragraph 2</P>

This option is ignored unless the paras option is set.

underline

Words surrounded with underscores are marked up with underline, so _abc_ becomes <U>abc</U>.

urls

Spots Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) in the text and converts them to links. For example

See https://perl.com/.

becomes

See <TT><A HREF="https://perl.com/">https://perl.com/</A></TT>.

SEE ALSO

The HTML::Entities module (part of the LWP package) provides functions for encoding and decoding HTML entities.

Seth Golub's txt2html utility does everything that HTML::FromText does, and a few things that it would like to do. See http://www.thehouse.org/txt2html/.

RFC 822: "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages" describes the syntax of email addresses (the more esoteric features of structured field bodies, in particular quoted-strings, domain literals and comments, are not recognized by HTML::FromText). See ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/rfc822.txt.

RFC 1630: "Universal Resource Identifiers in WWW" lists the protocols that may appear in URLs. HTML::FromText also recognizes "https:", but ignores "file:" because experience suggests that it results in too many false positives. See ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/rfc1630.txt.

AUTHOR

Gareth Rees <garethr@cre.canon.co.uk>.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1999 Canon Research Centre Europe. All rights reserved. This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.