| DocBook: The Definitive Guide Version 2.0.8 (Alpha)

# refpurpose

$Revision: 1.3 $

$Date: 2002/06/12 11:18:32 $

refpurpose — A short (one sentence) synopsis of the topic of a reference page

## Synopsis

### Mixed Content Model

    refpurpose ::=
    (#PCDATA|footnoteref|xref|abbrev|acronym|citation|citerefentry|
     citetitle|emphasis|firstterm|foreignphrase|glossterm|footnote|
     phrase|quote|trademark|wordasword|personname|link|olink|ulink|
     action|application|classname|methodname|interfacename|
     exceptionname|ooclass|oointerface|ooexception|command|
     computeroutput|database|email|envar|errorcode|errorname|
     errortype|errortext|filename|function|guibutton|guiicon|guilabel|
     guimenu|guimenuitem|guisubmenu|hardware|interface|keycap|keycode|
     keycombo|keysym|literal|constant|markup|medialabel|menuchoice|
     mousebutton|option|optional|parameter|prompt|property|
     replaceable|returnvalue|sgmltag|structfield|structname|symbol|
     systemitem|token|type|userinput|varname|nonterminal|anchor|
     author|authorinitials|corpauthor|modespec|othercredit|
     productname|productnumber|revhistory|remark|subscript|
     superscript|indexterm|beginpage)*

### Attributes

Common attributes

## Description

The `RefPurpose` is a concise summary of the topic of the reference page. A `RefPurpose` is usually limited to a single, short sentence.

### Processing expectations

Formatted inline. See `RefNameDiv`.

In a large `Reference`, `RefName`s and `RefPurpose`s are sometimes used to construct a permuted index. A permuted index is a keyword-in-context concordance of lines, like the short definitions in this element reference; the keyword cycles alphabetically through the words of the (definition) lines.

Formatting reference pages may require a fairly sophisticated processing system. Much of the meta-information about a reference page (its name, type, purpose, title, and classification) is stored in wrappers near the beginning of the `RefEntry`.

Common presentational features, such as titles and running headers, may require data from several of these wrappers plus some generated text. Other formatting often requires that these elements be reordered.

### Future Changes

The `InterfaceDefinition` element will be discarded in DocBook V4.0. It will no longer be available in the content model of this element.

### Parents

These elements contain refpurpose: `refnamediv`.

### Children

The following elements occur in refpurpose: `abbrev`, `acronym`, `action`, `anchor`, `application`, `author`, `authorinitials`, `beginpage`, `citation`, `citerefentry`, `citetitle`, `classname`, `command`, `computeroutput`, `constant`, `corpauthor`, `database`, `email`, `emphasis`, `envar`, `errorcode`, `errorname`, `errortext`, `errortype`, `exceptionname`, `filename`, `firstterm`, `footnote`, `footnoteref`, `foreignphrase`, `function`, `glossterm`, `guibutton`, `guiicon`, `guilabel`, `guimenu`, `guimenuitem`, `guisubmenu`, `hardware`, `indexterm`, `interface`, `interfacename`, `keycap`, `keycode`, `keycombo`, `keysym`, `link`, `literal`, `markup`, `medialabel`, `menuchoice`, `methodname`, `modespec`, `mousebutton`, `nonterminal`, `olink`, `ooclass`, `ooexception`, `oointerface`, `option`, `optional`, `othercredit`, `parameter`, `personname`, `phrase`, `productname`, `productnumber`, `prompt`, `property`, `quote`, `remark`, `replaceable`, `returnvalue`, `revhistory`, `sgmltag`, `structfield`, `structname`, `subscript`, `superscript`, `symbol`, `systemitem`, `token`, `trademark`, `type`, `ulink`, `userinput`, `varname`, `wordasword`, `xref`.

## Examples

For examples, see `refentry`, `reference`.

refnamediv |  | refsect1

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