how do i write a --help page?

[Maulkin]

i have written a perl application and need to create a help page for it so the command

>myperl --help

will display this page anyone know how

 

[KenCunningham]

Can you clarify whether you want a help page which can be called up from within the application or a man page which gives details of how the application should be used? It might also be helpful to post this in the perl forum on Tek-Tips (search for the forum above). Note, however, that such cross-posting is usually discouraged.

 

[Maulkin]

what i mean as far as I know belongs in unix, I want to make page for --help for my program.

to clarify try >man --help

this will display not a man page but short page on the command lines for the man utility

 

[KenCunningham]

Sorry, still not quite clear. A common appraoch to this is to include a "useage" statement if the command is incorrectly used (for example, if a parameter is missing), eg:

$./script.sh
Useage: script.sh <parameter 1> <parameter 2>
$