Package: perl-doc Version: 5.22.1-8 $ perldoc -f qx | tail -n 3
See "I/O Operators" for more discussion. User thinks "where?". User check man perldoc. -f perlfunc The -f option followed by the name of a perl built-in function will extract the documentation of this function from perlfunc. (##1##) And indeed, $ man perlfunc | grep -A 1 "I/O Operators" "<*.c>" operator is discussed in more detail in "I/O Operators" in perlop. -- more detail in "I/O Operators" in perlop. So it must be in perlop! So why doesn't $ perldoc -f qx | tail -n 3 mention perlop? Ah, in Pod/Perldoc.pm we see BuiltinFunction is the name of a perl function. Will extract documentation from `perlfunc' or `perlop'. therefore (##1##) above should also mention perlop! OK. Now there still remains the problem of what $ perldoc -f qx | tail -n 3 should say. If it says "... in perlop", that will be weird for users already doing "man perlop". I leave it up to you how to fix it.