HTML::FromText - mark up text as HTML
use HTML::FromText; print text2html($text, urls => 1, paras => 1, headings => 1);
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.
text2html
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:
pre
lines
paras
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
text2html will issue a warning if it is passed nonsensical options, for example headings but not paras. These warnings can be supressed by setting $HTML::FromText::QUIET to true.
headings
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.
blockparas
blockcode
blockquotes
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, "Can machines think?"</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
<P>From "The Waste Land":</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/; $_; }
<P>Here's how to output numbers with commas:</P> <BLOCKQUOTE><TT>sub commify {<BR> local $_ = shift;<BR> 1 while s/^(-?\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/;<BR> $_;<BR> }</TT></BLOCKQUOTE>
Words surrounded with asterisks are marked up in bold, so *abc* becomes <B>abc</B>.
*abc*
<B>abc</B>
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
<P>Shopping list:</P> <UL><LI><P>apples</P> <LI><P>pears</P> </UL>
This option is ignored unless the paras option is set.
Spots email addresses in the text and converts them to links. For example
Mail me at web@perl.com.
Mail me at <TT><A HREF="mailto:web@perl.com">web@perl.com</A></TT>.
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
<H1>1. Introduction</H1> <H2>1.1 Background</H2> <H3>1.1.1 Previous work</H3> <H1>2. Conclusion</H1>
Formats the text so as to preserve line breaks. For example,
Line 1 Line 2
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.
Converts HTML metacharacters into their corresponding entity references. Ampersand (&) becomes &, less than (<) becomes <, greater than (>) becomes >, and quote (") becomes ". This option is 1 by default.
&
&
<
<
>
>
"
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
<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>
Format the text into paragraphs. Paragraphs are separated by one or more blank lines. For example,
Paragraph 1 Paragraph 2
<P>Paragraph 1</P> <P>Paragraph 2</P>
Wrap the whole input in a <PRE> element. For example,
<PRE>
preformatted text
<PRE>preformatted text</PRE>
Preserves spaces throughout the text. For example,
Line 1 Line 2 Line 3
Line 1<BR> Line 2<BR> Line 3
This option is ignored unless the lines option is set.
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).
<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.
Formats the first paragraph of the text as a first-level heading. For example,
<H1>Paragraph 1</H1> <P>Paragraph 2</P>
Words surrounded with underscores are marked up with underline, so _abc_ becomes <U>abc</U>.
_abc_
<U>abc</U>
Spots Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) in the text and converts them to links. For example
See https://perl.com/.
See <TT><A HREF="https://perl.com/">https://perl.com/</A></TT>.
The HTML::Entities module (part of the LWP package) provides functions for encoding and decoding HTML entities.
HTML::Entities
Tom Christiansen has a complete implementation of RFC 822 structured field bodies. See http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/ckaddr.gz.
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/ckaddr.gz
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/.
txt2html
HTML::FromText
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.
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.
ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/rfc1630.txt
Gareth Rees <garethr@cre.canon.co.uk>.
<garethr@cre.canon.co.uk>
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.
To install HTML::FromText, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm HTML::FromText
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install HTML::FromText
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.