refdescriptor — A description of the topic of a reference page
abbrev
acronym
coref
date
emphasis
(db.emphasis)firstterm
footnote
footnoteref
foreignphrase
glossterm
phrase
(db.phrase)quote
subscript
superscript
wordasword
alt
anchor
annotation
biblioref
indexterm
(db.indexterm.endofrange)indexterm
(db.indexterm.singular)indexterm
(db.indexterm.startofrange)inlinemediaobject
link
olink
remark
subscript
superscript
xref
Reference pages (refentry
s) are usually identified by a short, succinct topic name, such as the name of a function or command. The refname
(or one of the refname
s, in the case of a reference page that has several) is generally used as the topic name. When none of the refname
s is appropriate, refdescriptor
is used to specify the topic name.
A refdescriptor
is unnecessary when an appropriate refname
can be selected automatically. At least one refname
is required, so refdescriptor
cannot be used in place of a name, only in addition to it.
May be formatted inline or as a displayed block, depending on context.
Formatting reference pages may require a fairly sophisticated processing system. Much of the meta-information about a reference page (its name, type, purpose, title, and classification) is stored in wrappers near the beginning of the refentry
.
Common presentational features, such as titles and running heads, may require data from several of these wrappers plus some generated text. Other formatting often requires that these elements be reordered.
If a refdescriptor
is present, it should be used for the short topic name. This name usually appears in the running header along with the manvolnum
in print media. It may also appear in tables of contents and the index.
The following elements occur in refdescriptor: text, abbrev
, accel
, acronym
, alt
, anchor
, annotation
, application
, author
, biblioref
, citation
, citebiblioid
, citerefentry
,
citetitle
, classname
, code
, command
, computeroutput
, constant
, coref
, database
, date
, editor
, email
, emphasis
(db.emphasis), envar
,
errorcode
, errorname
, errortext
, errortype
, exceptionname
, filename
, firstterm
, footnote
, footnoteref
, foreignphrase
, function
, glossterm
, guibutton
,
guiicon
, guilabel
, guimenu
, guimenuitem
, guisubmenu
, hardware
, html:button
, html:fieldset
, html:input
, html:label
, html:select
, html:textarea
, indexterm
(db.indexterm.endofrange), indexterm
(db.indexterm.singular), indexterm
(db.indexterm.startofrange), initializer
, inlineequation
, inlinemediaobject
, interfacename
, jobtitle
, keycap
, keycode
, keycombo
, keysym
, link
, literal
, markup
, menuchoice
, methodname
,
modifier
, mousebutton
, nonterminal
, olink
, ooclass
, ooexception
, oointerface
, option
, optional
, org
, orgname
, package
, parameter
, person
, personname
, phrase
(db.phrase), productname
, productnumber
, prompt
, property
, quote
, remark
, replaceable
, returnvalue
, shortcut
, subscript
, superscript
, symbol
, systemitem
, tag
, termdef
, token
, trademark
,
type
, uri
, userinput
, varname
, wordasword
, xref
.