optional
optional — Optional information.
Synopsis
- Zero or more of:
- text
replaceable- Graphic inlines
![[+]](figs/web/nav/right.gif)
- Indexing inlines
![[+]](figs/web/nav/right.gif)
- Linking inlines
![[+]](figs/web/nav/right.gif)
- Ubiquitous inlines
![[+]](figs/web/nav/right.gif)
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
being documented.
Processing expectations
Parents
These elements contain optional: bridgehead, caption (db.html.caption), citation, citetitle, classsynopsisinfo, computeroutput, contrib, emphasis (db.emphasis), entry, firstterm (db.firstterm), funcsynopsisinfo, glosssee, glossseealso, glossterm (db.glossterm), link, literallayout, member, olink, orgdiv, para, phrase (db.phrase), primary, primaryie, programlisting, quote (db.quote), refdescriptor, refentrytitle, refname, refpurpose, remark, 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, abbrev, acronym, alt, anchor, annotation, biblioref, coref, date, emphasis (db._emphasis), firstterm (db._firstterm), footnote, footnoteref, foreignphrase (db._foreignphrase), glossterm (db._glossterm), indexterm (db.indexterm.endofrange), indexterm (db.indexterm.singular), indexterm (db.indexterm.startofrange), inlinemediaobject, link, olink, phrase (db._phrase), quote (db._quote), remark, replaceable, subscript, superscript, trademark, wordasword, xref.
See Also
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
![[x]](figs/web/nav/delete.gif)
![[-]](figs/web/nav/down.gif)