symbol

symbol — A name that is replaced by a value before processing

Synopsis

symbol ::= [-]

Attributes

Common attributes and common linking attributes.

Additional attributes:

  • class (enumeration)
    • “limit”

Description

A symbol is a name that represents a value. It should be used in contexts in which the name will actually be replaced by a value before processing. The canonical example is a #defined symbol in a C program where the C preprocessor replaces every occurance of the symbol with its value before compilation begins.

The Limit value of the class attribute identifies those symbols that represent system limitations (for example, the number of characters allowed in a path name or the largest possible positive integer). DocBook V3.1 introduced the constant element, which may be more suitable for some of these symbols.

Processing expectations

Formatted inline.

Attributes

Common attributes and common linking attributes.

class

Identifies the class of symbol

Enumerated values:
“limit”

The value is a limit of some kind

Children

The following elements occur in symbol: text, alt, anchor, annotation, biblioref, indexterm (db.indexterm.endofrange), indexterm (db.indexterm.singular), indexterm (db.indexterm.startofrange), inlinemediaobject, link, olink, phrase (db._phrase), remark, replaceable, subscript, superscript, xref.

See Also

classname, property, token, type

Examples

<article xmlns='http://docbook.org/ns/docbook'>
<title>Example symbol</title>

<para>No filename may be more than <symbol class='limit'>MAXPATHLEN</symbol>
characters long.
</para>

</article>

No filename may be more than MAXPATHLEN characters long.

ChangeLog

This alpha reference page is $Revision: 7120 $ published Sun, 22 Jul 2007.