optional

optional — Optional information

Synopsis

optional ::=

Zero or more of:
- text
- phrase (db._phrase)
- replaceable
- Graphic inlines
  inlinemediaobject
- Indexing inlines
  indexterm (db.indexterm.endofrange)
  
  indexterm (db.indexterm.singular)
  
  indexterm (db.indexterm.startofrange)
- Linking inlines
  anchor
  
  biblioref
  
  link
  
  olink
  
  xref
- Ubiquitous inlines
  alt
  
  anchor
  
  annotation
  
  biblioref
  
  indexterm (db.indexterm.endofrange)
  
  indexterm (db.indexterm.singular)
  
  indexterm (db.indexterm.startofrange)
  
  inlinemediaobject
  
  link
  
  olink
  
  remark
  
  subscript
  
  superscript
  
  xref

Attributes

Common attributes and common linking attributes.

Description

The optional element indicates that a specified argument, option, or other text is optional. The precise meaning of “optional” varies according to the application or process begin documented.

Processing expectations

Formatted inline.

Optional arguments in a synopsis are usually given special typographic treatment, often they are surrounded by square brackets. The optional tag is expected to generate the brackets.

Outside a synopsis, the typographic treatment of optional is application-specific.

Parents

These elements contain optional: bridgehead, caption (db.html.caption), citation, citetitle, classsynopsisinfo, computeroutput, emphasis (db.emphasis), entry, firstterm, funcsynopsisinfo, glosssee, glossseealso, glossterm, html:button, html:label, html:legend, link, literallayout, member, olink, orgdiv, para, phrase (db.phrase), primary, primaryie, programlisting, quote, refdescriptor, refentrytitle, refname, refpurpose, screen, secondary, secondaryie, see, seealso, seealsoie, seeie, seg, segtitle, simpara, subtitle, synopsis, td, term, termdef, tertiary, tertiaryie, th, title, titleabbrev, tocentry, userinput.

Children

The following elements occur in optional: text, alt, anchor, annotation, biblioref, indexterm (db.indexterm.endofrange), indexterm (db.indexterm.singular), indexterm (db.indexterm.startofrange), inlinemediaobject, link, olink, phrase (db._phrase), remark, replaceable, subscript, superscript, xref.

Examples

<article xmlns='http://docbook.org/ns/docbook'>
<title>Example optional</title>

<synopsis>
ls <option>-abcCdfFgilLmnopqrRstux1</option>
   <optional>names</optional>
</synopsis>

</article>

ls -abcCdfFgilLmnopqrRstux1
   [names]

ChangeLog

This alpha reference page is $Revision: 7120 $ published Sun, 22 Jul 2007.


option		orderedlist