4. Typographic conventions

This section covers the conventions used in this book. Depending on what version you are currently reading some fonts may look the same.

Typographic Conventions

filename

This font designates the name of a file. A filename optionally includes a path.

user input

This font is used for the user's input. This refers only to things that can be typed in at the console.

meta-variable

This typeface is reserved for placeholders, i.e. stuff that always is replaced with the real input.

literal piece of code

We use this font to display literal pieces of code, variables, constant as well as operators.

variable

Variables of all kinds are marked up this way.

function

Functions or procedures of all kinds are marked up this way.

command

We use this font for shell commands, but also for Scilab commands.

environment-variable

To distinguish environment variables from program variables a separate font is used.

In examples, which show some source-code, additional comments always start with two dashes independent of the language. JadeTeX coerces these two dashes into one longer dash, called en-dash.


#include <stdio.h>

/* The world's most famous C-program */

int
main(void)
{
        printf("Hello world!\n");
        return 0;  -- exit code for success
}