Re: DOCBOOK: Re: Environment Variables in File/Directory Names

[Gregory Leblanc <gleblanc@linuxweasel.com>]

On Sun, 2001-12-02 at 22:18, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Gregory Leblanc <gleblanc@linuxweasel.com> writes:
> 
> >> This leads me to another question: What markup is appropriate
> >> for distinguishing between an environment variable and its value? (I'm
> >> simply talking about the difference between TOMCAT_HOME and $TOMCAT_HOME).
> >
> > I normally use <varname>...
> 
> Really?  And when your publischer decides, all environment variables

I am my publisher, and will be for the forseeable future.

> should be prefixed with "$" or printed with italics you've lost; better
> distinguish now:

Why?  It's the name of a variable.  literal holds no contextual meaning
for me, so I don't use it anywhere.  It's (IMHO, of course) a hack for
when you can't think of a better way to do something.  I used <envar> to
point to the value of the variable, instead of to the name of the
variable, because that made sense to me at the time.  I can see other
intepretations, but I don't see any other markup that makes sense for
the value of a variable.

>     For <envar>DISPLAY</envar> use <literal>localhost:0.0</literal>.
> 
> <varname> is for such things like:
> 
>     <varname>i</variable> will increment from <literal>0</literal> to
>     <literal>9</literal>.

Sure, but only if you buy into envar being an environmental variable,
instead of the value of an environmental variable.  Clearly there are
multiple possible interpretations here, that's why there are multiple
stylesheets.  :)
	Greg