Splunk® Style Guide

Splunk Style Guide

The guidelines in the Splunk Style Guide establish best practices for writing technical documentation. Search docs.splunk.com to find documentation related to Splunk products.

Brackets

There are three kinds of brackets: angle brackets, curly braces, and square brackets.

Angle brackets ( < and > )

Use angle brackets as a placeholder for variables you want the user to enter. See the following table for an example of placeholder angle brackets:

Do this Don't do this
Enter your user-specified domain in this format: https://<user-specified domain>.splunkcloud.com.
  • Enter your user-specified domain in this format: https://{user-specified domain}.splunkcloud.com.
  • Enter your user-specified domain in this format: https://(user-specified domain).splunkcloud.com.
  • Enter your user-specified domain in this format: https://[user-specified domain].splunkcloud.com.

Don't use the right-pointing angle bracket ( > ) to indicate navigation through a series of menu item selections. Instead, spell out the sentence using a word like "then". The following example shows how to write out menu path navigation:

Do this Don't do this
  1. Select Start, then Administrative Tools, then Computer Management.
  1. Select Start > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.

In order for an action to qualify as a step in a menu path, the action must be accessible within that menu. If completing a step in the path takes the user to a new page or menu where they complete another action, describe that action in a new task step instead of combining it in the same step.

Do this Don't do this
  1. In Splunk Web, select Settings, then Advanced Search.
  2. On the Advanced search page, select Search commands.
  1. In Splunk Web, select Settings > Advanced Search > Search commands.

Curly braces ( { and } )

Use curly braces only when they are part of a code sample or other string literal.

Square brackets ( [ and ] )

Use square brackets around a .conf file stanza name or within code. See the following examples:

  • Edit the [splunktcp] stanza.
  • Specify a subsearch that starts with this search command: tag=dns query [search tag=malware].
Last modified on 11 January, 2024
Apostrophe   Colon

This documentation applies to the following versions of Splunk® Style Guide: current


Was this topic useful?







You must be logged into splunk.com in order to post comments. Log in now.

Please try to keep this discussion focused on the content covered in this documentation topic. If you have a more general question about Splunk functionality or are experiencing a difficulty with Splunk, consider posting a question to Splunkbase Answers.

0 out of 1000 Characters