procedure

$Revision: 3588 $

$Date: 2004-05-19 11:56:44 -0400 (Wed, 19 May 2004) $

procedure — A list of operations to be performed in a well-defined sequence

Synopsis

Content Model

procedure ::=
(blockinfo?,
 (title,titleabbrev?)?,
 (calloutlist|glosslist|bibliolist|itemizedlist|orderedlist|
  segmentedlist|simplelist|variablelist|caution|important|note|
  tip|warning|literallayout|programlisting|programlistingco|
  screen|screenco|screenshot|synopsis|cmdsynopsis|funcsynopsis|
  classsynopsis|fieldsynopsis|constructorsynopsis|
  destructorsynopsis|methodsynopsis|formalpara|para|simpara|
  address|blockquote|graphic|graphicco|mediaobject|mediaobjectco|
  informalequation|informalexample|informalfigure|informaltable|
  equation|example|figure|table|msgset|procedure|sidebar|qandaset|
  task|productionset|constraintdef|anchor|bridgehead|remark|
  highlights|abstract|authorblurb|epigraph|indexterm|beginpage)*,
 step+)

Attributes

Common attributes

Description

A Procedure encapsulates a task composed of Steps (and possibly, SubSteps). Procedures are usually performed sequentially, unless individual Steps direct the reader explicitly.

Often it is important to assure that certain conditions exist before a procedure is performed, and that the outcome of the procedure matches the expected results. DocBook does not provide explicit semantic markup for these pre- and post-conditions. Instead, they must be described as steps (check the pre-conditions in the first step and the results in the last step), or described outside the body of the procedure.

The task element, added to DocBook in V4.3, provides some of this infrastructure.

Processing expectations

Formatted as a displayed block.

Examples

<!DOCTYPE procedure PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
          "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd">
<procedure><title>An Example Procedure</title>
<step>
  <para>
    A Step
  </para>
</step>
<step>
  <para>
    Another Step
  </para>
  <substeps>
    <step>
      <para>
        Substeps can be nested indefinitely deep.
      </para>
    </step>
  </substeps>
</step>
<step>
  <para>
    A Final Step
  </para>
</step>
</procedure>

Procedure 1. An Example Procedure

  1. A Step

  2. Another Step

    1. Substeps can be nested indefinitely deep.

  3. A Final Step