You might also want to check out Pod::Usage, which uses your POD to print out usage messages (similar in spirit to what your code does, but it doesn't print the entire POD).

You can have it print out your SYNOPSIS section, and optionally an ARGUMENTS and/or OPTIONS section.

Here's an example from the docs:

    use Getopt::Long;
    use Pod::Usage;


    my $man = 0;
    my $help = 0;
    ## Parse options and print usage if there is a syntax error,
    ## or if usage was explicitly requested.
    GetOptions('help|?' => \$help, man => \$man) or pod2usage(2);
    pod2usage(1) if $help;
    pod2usage(-verbose => 2) if $man;


    ## If no arguments were given, then allow STDIN to be used only
    ## if it's not connected to a terminal (otherwise print usage)
    pod2usage("$0: No files given.")  if ((@ARGV == 0) && (-t STDIN));
    __END__

    =head1 NAME


    sample - Using GetOpt::Long and Pod::Usage


    =head1 SYNOPSIS


    sample [options] [file ...]


     Options:
       -help            brief help message
       -man             full documentation


    =head1 OPTIONS


    =over 8


    =item B<-help>


    Print a brief help message and exits.


    =item B<-man>


    Prints the manual page and exits.


    =back


    =head1 DESCRIPTION


    B<This program> will read the given input file(s) and do something
    useful with the contents thereof.


    =cut
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