Documentation Conventions

These conventions should be obvious, but we'll include them here for the pedantic.

Bold

Used to mark new conectps, Warning, and keywords in a language.

italics

Used for emphasis in text, and occasionally for quotes or introductions at the beginning of a section. Also used to indicate commands for the user to type when showing screen interaction (see below).

<slanted>

Used to mark meta-variables in the text, especially in representations of the command line. For example,

ls -l <foo>

where <foo> would ``stand for'' a filename, such as /bin/cp

Typewriter

Used to represent screen interaction, as in

$ ls -l /bin/cp

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 12104 Sep 25 15:53 /bin/cp

Also used for code examples, wheter it is C code, a shell script, or something else, and to display general files, such as configuration files. When necessary for clarity's sake, these exmpales or figures will be enclosed in thin boxes.

Key

Represents a key to press. You will often see it in this form:

Press return to continue

<>

A diamond in the margin, lke a black diamond on a ski hill, marks ``danger'' or ``caution.'' Read paragraphs marked this way carefully.