Splunk® Style Guide

Splunk Style Guide

Acrobat logo Download manual as PDF


Acrobat logo Download topic as PDF

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.
Last modified on 23 June, 2023
PREVIOUS
Exclamation points
  NEXT
Percent

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


Was this documentation topic helpful?


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