optional
optional — Optional information.
Synopsis
optional ::= × ⏵
- Zero or more of:
- text
optionalreplaceable- 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|-abcCdfFgilLmnopqrRstux1names