<var>

The <var> element identifies a variable within a syntax diagram or phrase.

Specialization hierarchy

The <var> element is specialized from <ph>. It is defined in the syntax-diagram domain module, which is a specialization of the programming domain module.

Content model

(Text | <data> | <foreign> | <keyword> | <term> | <text>)*

Contained by

<groupchoice>, <groupcomp>, <groupseq>, <synph>

Zero or more of the following
  • Text
  • <data>
  • <foreign>
  • <keyword>
  • <term>
  • <text>

Contained by

Inheritance

+ topic/ph pr-d/ph syntaxdiagram-d/var

The <var> element is specialized from <ph>. It is defined in the syntaxdiagram-domain module.

Attributes

The following attributes are available on this element: universal attributes.

For this element, the @importance attribute indicates whether this item in a syntax diagram is optional, required, or used by default. The attribute value is limited to optional, required, default, or -dita-use-conref-target.

The following attributes are available on this element: universal attributes and the attributes defined below.

@importance
For this element, the @importance attribute indicates whether this item in a syntax diagram is optional, required, or used by default. The attribute value is limited to optional, required, default, or -dita-use-conref-target.

Example

This section is non-normative.

The following code sample shows how the <var> element can be used to identify variables for which the user will substitute the names of the input and output files:

<syntaxdiagram frame="bottom">
 <title>CopyFile</title>
 <groupseq><kwd>COPYF</kwd></groupseq>
 <groupcomp><var>input-filename</var><kwd>*INFILE</kwd></groupcomp>
 <groupseq><var>output-filename</var><kwd>*OUTFILE</kwd></groupseq>
</syntaxdiagram>