option

option — An option for a software command.

Synopsis

option ::=

Attributes

Common attributes and common linking attributes.

No additional attributes.

Description

An option identifies an argument to a software command or instruction. Options may or may not be required. The optional element can be used to explicitly identify options that are not required.

Processing expectations

Formatted inline.

DocBook does not specify whether or not a symbol (such as - or /) is generated before the content of option, or what that symbol might be. Generating the text may or may not be desirable, but in either case, it is an interchange issue. See Appendix D, Interchanging DocBook Documents.

Attributes

Common attributes and common linking attributes.

any attribute

Any attribute in any other explicit namespace

Parents

These elements contain option: arg, bridgehead, caption (db.html.caption), citation, citetitle, classsynopsisinfo, computeroutput, contrib, emphasis (db.emphasis), entry, enumitemdescription, firstterm (db.firstterm), funcsynopsisinfo, glosssee, glossseealso, glossterm (db.glossterm), group (db.group), link, literallayout, member, meta (db.meta.content), 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, synopsisinfo, td, term, termdef, tertiary, tertiaryie, th, title, titleabbrev, tocentry, userinput.

Children

The following elements occur in option: 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

Related elements: computeroutput, constant, literal, markup, optional, parameter, prompt, replaceable, tag, userinput, varname.

Examples

 1 |<article xmlns='http://docbook.org/ns/docbook'>
   |<title>Example option</title>
   | 
   |<para>The <option>-a</option> option on the <acronym>UNIX</acronym>
 5 |<command>ls</command> command or the <option>/r</option> option on the
   |<acronym>DOS</acronym> <command>attrib</command>
   |command, for example.
   |</para>
   | 
10 |</article>

The -a option on the UNIX ls command or the /r option on the DOS attrib command, for example.