=head1 NAME Text::AsciiTeX - Convert (La)TeX formulas to ASCII art =head1 SYNOPSIS use Text::AsciiArt; #equivalent examples my @text_array = render('\frac{1}{e}'); print "$_\n" for @text_array; my $text_array = render('\frac{1}{e}'); print $text_array; print scalar render('\frac{1}{e}'); render('\frac{1}{e}'); =head1 DESCRIPTION This module provides a mechanism to render (La)TeX formulae to ASCII art. It is based solely on F<AsciiTeX> written by Bart Pieters (See L</"UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGIES">). =head1 EXPORTED FUNCTION This module exports the C<render> function. =head2 C<< render( $latex [, $columns] ) >> =head3 Argument(s) The function C<render> accepts a string containing a formula in (La)TeX formatting. Optionally, an integer may be given to specify the number of columns for the output or zero for no-breaking. The default number of columns is 80. =head3 Return Since version 0.03 the return value is context aware. =over =item * In list context, C<render> returns a list whose elements are strings, one for each row of the art. Printing each line, terminated by a newline will probably do what you expect. =item * In scalar context, C<render> will return a string of the concatenated lines, each ended with a newline. =item * In void context, C<render> will print the scalar context return directly to the C<select>ed file handle (usually C<STDOUT>). =back =head1 EXAMPLES For use examples see L</SYNOPSIS>. For a list of allowed syntax and syntax examples read L<Text::AsciiTeX::Syntax>. =head1 UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGIES This module is basically just a C-level Perl wrapper of F<AsciiTeX> written by Bart Pieters. That project is hosted at L<http://asciitex.sourceforge.net/>. F<AsciiTeX> in turn was a fork of F<eqascii> which was written by Przemek Borys. This module owes a debt of thanks to both authors. =head1 SOURCE REPOSITORY L<http://github.com/jberger/Text::AsciiTeX> =head1 AUTHOR Joel Berger, E<lt>joel.a.berger@gmail.comE<gt> =head1 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright (C) 2012 by Joel Berger This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.