[ID 20010108.007] pod should be indentable

This is a bug report for perl from vlb@cfcl.com,
generated with the help of perlbug 1.20 running under perl 5.00404.


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[Please enter your report here]

I assume (hope) this is an old and oft-submitted request.

POD should be indentable.  Perl is white-space tolerant; why should POD be
different.

The Camel sayeth:

   ...files...may contain dollops of pod sprinkled about wherever
    the author feels like it. Perl simply skips pover the pod text
    when parsing the file for execution.

I say: if I can't indent it, it ain't :wherever I feel like it".

The Camel sayeth:

   The Perl lexer knows to begin skipping when, at a spot
   where it would ordinarily find a statement, it instead finds a line
   beginning with an equal sign and an identifier".

I say "That's misleading and not true..."

Let's get nit-picky about "beginning with".

Comments "begin with" a #. But, that statement does not imply that
comments MUST begin in column 1!

If I can indent these statements

     # x is cool

     $x = 25;

Why can't I indent

    =head
   ...
    =cut

If nothing preceeds the statement (pod) except (invisible to Perl) white
space... why can't I indent pod?

Sayeth the Camel: This allows you to intermix your source code and
documentation freely.

Nay, not freely. My documentation commands must be left-justified in column
1. At no other time is Perl so heavy-handed.

I thought I had done with Column 1 when I left FORTRAN behind.

Pod isn't... well..., very Perlish.



[Please do not change anything below this line]
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---
Site configuration information for perl 5.00404:

Configured by adiop at Wed Nov  4 22:06:21 PST 1998.

Summary of my perl5 (5.0 patchlevel 4 subversion 4) configuration:
  Platform:
    osname=solaris, osvers=2.4, archname=sun4-solaris
    uname='sunos moose 5.4 generic_ sun4m '
    hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
    bincompat3=y useperlio=undef d_sfio=undef
  Compiler:
    cc='cc', optimize='-O', gccversion=2.6.0
    cppflags='-I/usr/local/include -I/opt/gnu/include'
    ccflags ='-I/usr/local/include -I/opt/gnu/include'
    stdchar='unsigned char', d_stdstdio=define, usevfork=false
    voidflags=15, castflags=0, d_casti32=define, d_castneg=define
    intsize=4, alignbytes=8, usemymalloc=y, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries:
    ld='cc', ldflags =' -L/usr/local/lib -L/opt/gnu/lib'
    libpth=/usr/local/lib /opt/gnu/lib /lib /usr/lib /usr/ccs/lib
    libs=-lsocket -lnsl -ldb -ldl -lm -lc -lcrypt
    libc=/lib/libc.so, so=so
    useshrplib=false, libperl=libperl.a
  Dynamic Linking:
    dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=so, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags=' '
    cccdlflags='-fpic', lddlflags='-G -L/usr/local/lib -L/opt/gnu/lib'

Locally applied patches:
	

---
@INC for perl 5.00404:
	/usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-solaris/5.00404
	/usr/local/lib/perl5
	/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/sun4-solaris
	/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
	/usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-solaris
	.

---
Environment for perl 5.00404:
    HOME=/ext203/home/browvic
    LANG (unset)
    LC_COLLATE=en_US
    LC_CTYPE=en_US
    LC_MESSAGES=C
    LC_MONETARY=en_US
    LC_NUMERIC=en_US
    LC_TIME=en_US
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH (unset)
    LOGDIR (unset)
    PATH=/ext203/home/browvic/bin:/ext203/home/browvic/nib:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/ucb:/usr/bin:/bin:/etc:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/games:.:/net/asg-sf03/prod/sybase/bin:/usr/lib/lp/postscript:~/Work/bagelbin
    PERL_BADLANG (unset)
    SHELL=/bin/tcsh

• [ID 20010108.007] pod should be indentable by vicki.brown
• RE: [ID 20010108.007] pod should be indentable by Brown, Vicki BGI SF
• RE: [ID 20010108.007] pod should be indentable by Brown, Vicki BGI SF
• Re: [ID 20010108.007] pod should be indentable by Simon Cozens
• Re: [ID 20010108.007] pod should be indentable by Jeff Pinyan
• Re: [ID 20010108.007] pod should be indentable by Jeff Pinyan