Throughout this manual, we use certain typographical conventions to
distinguish technical terms. In general, the conventions we use
conform to those found in IEEE POSIX publications. The following table
summarizes our conventions:
Reference |
Example |
Code examples |
if( stream == NULL ) |
Command options |
-lR |
Commands |
make |
Environment variables |
PATH |
File and pathnames |
/dev/null |
Function names |
exit() |
Keyboard chords |
Ctrl-Alt-Delete |
Keyboard input |
something you type |
Keyboard keys |
Enter |
Program output |
login: |
Programming constants |
NULL |
Programming data types |
unsigned short |
Programming literals |
0xFF, "message string" |
Variable names |
stdin |
User-interface components
|
Cancel |
We use an arrow (→) in directions for accessing menu
items, like this:
You'll find the Other... menu item under
.
We use notes, cautions, and warnings to highlight important
messages:
![Note:](pointing.gif) |
Notes point out something important or useful. |
![Caution:](caution.gif) |
Cautions tell you about commands or procedures that may have
unwanted or undesirable side effects. |
![WARNING:](warning.gif) |
Warnings tell you about commands or procedures that could be
dangerous to your files, your hardware, or even yourself. |
In our documentation, we use a forward slash
(/) as a delimiter in all pathnames,
including those pointing to Windows files.
We also generally follow POSIX/UNIX filesystem conventions.
At the top and bottom of our HTML docs, you'll see some or all of these
buttons:
Use this button:
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To move: |
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To the previous part of the document.
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“Up” in the document:
- In a prose book, this typically takes you to About This Guide.
- In a reference book, it takes you to the listing of items
that start with a given letter.
For example, if you're looking at the docs for abs(),
this button takes you to the listing of the functions that start
with A.
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To the keyword index.
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To the next part of the document.
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