optional
optional — Optional information.
Synopsis
optional ::= × ⏵
- Zero or more of:
- text
optional
replaceable
- Graphic inlines ⏵
- Indexing inlines ⏵
- Linking inlines ⏵
- Ubiquitous inlines ⏵
Attributes
Common attributes and common linking attributes.
No additional 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
Formatted inline.
Optional arguments in a synopsis
are usually
given special typographic treatment, and 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.
Attributes
Common attributes and common linking attributes.
- any attribute
Any attribute in any other explicit namespace
Parents
56 elements contain optional
. × ⏵
Children
30 elements occur in optional
. × ⏵
See Also
Related elements: computeroutput
, constant
, literal
, markup
, option
, parameter
, prompt
, replaceable
, tag
, userinput
, varname
.
Examples
1 |<article xmlns='http://docbook.org/ns/docbook'>
|<title>Example optional</title>
||
<synopsis>
5 |ls <option>-abcCdfFgilLmnopqrRstux1</option>
|<optional>names</optional>
|</synopsis>
||
</article>
||
ls
|-abcCdfFgilLmnopqrRstux1
names