Typographical conventions

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

Single-step instructions are formatted like this:

: To reboot your computer, press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Delete.

Notes, cautions, and warnings are used to highlight important messages:

Notes point out something important or useful. Cautions tell you about commands or procedures that may have unwanted or undesirable side effects. Warnings tell you about commands or procedures that could be dangerous to your files, your hardware, or even yourself.