Parentheses

Make the point in each of your sentences without using parentheses. Don't use parentheses in place of commas, to enclose a complete sentence, or to include unnecessary information or an afterthought.

Don't write a lowercase "s" or "es" in parentheses, "(s)" or "(es)", after a noun to indicate both singular and plural. Choose the best option for your documentation.

You can use parentheses in the following cases:

• To introduce an abbreviation
• To enclose a symbol
• For optional steps in a task
• In SPL commands and functions

Abbreviations

You can use parentheses to introduce an abbreviation.

Correct

Use the Splunk Search Processing Language (SPL) to search your data.

Incorrect

Use SPL (the Splunk Search Processing Language) to search your data.

Symbols

Use parentheses to enclose a symbol after spelling it out.

Correct

Begin the line with a forward slash ( / ).

Incorrect

Begin the line with a forward slash, /.

Optional steps in tasks

You can use parentheses when explaining that a step is optional in a task.

Correct

(Optional) Provide the context for the task in a new paragraph.

Incorrect

Optional: Provide the context for the task in a new paragraph.

Provide the context for the task in a new paragraph (optional).

SPL commands and functions

You can also use parentheses when writing about one or more fields in statistical commands and charting functions for SPL. See the following example:

• Use with earliest(x) and latest(x) to calculate the rate of increase.