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<span id="Info-Format-Regular-Nodes"></span><div class="header">
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Previous: <a href="Info-Format-Local-Variables.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Info Format Local Variables</a>, Up: <a href="Info-Format-General-Layout.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Info Format General Layout</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<hr>
<h4 class="node-heading">Info Format Regular Nodes</h4>
<span id="Info-Format_003a-Regular-Nodes"></span><h4 class="subheading">Info Format: Regular Nodes</h4>
<span id="index-Info-nodes_002c-in-Info-format"></span>
<p>Regular nodes look like this:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example"> <node> =
<separator>
File: <fn>, Node: <id1>, (Next: <id2>, )? (Prev: <id3>, )? Up: <id4>
<general text, until the next ^_ or end-of-file>
</pre></div>
<p>At least one space or tab must be present after each colon and comma,
but any number of spaces are ignored. The <tt><id></tt> node identifiers have
following format:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example"> <id> = (<lparen><infofile><rparen>)?(<del>?<nodename><del>?)?
| <id> = (<lparen><infofile><rparen>)?(<nodename>)?
</pre></div>
<p>This <tt><node></tt> defines <tt><id1></tt> in file <tt><fn></tt>, which is typically
either ‘<samp>manualname</samp>’ or ‘<samp>manualname.info</samp>’. No parenthesized
<tt><infofile></tt> component may appear within <tt><id1></tt>.
</p>
<p>Each of the identifiers after <code>Next</code>, <code>Prev</code> and <code>Up</code>
refer to nodes or anchors within a file. These pointers normally
refer within the same file, but ‘<samp>(dir)</samp>’ is often used to point to
the top-level dir file. If an <tt><infofile></tt> component is used then
the node name may be omitted, in which case the node identifier refers
to the ‘<samp>Top</samp>’ node within the referenced file.
</p>
<p>The <code>Next</code> and <code>Prev</code> pointers are optional. The <code>Up</code>
pointer is technically also optional, although most likely this
indicates a mistake in the node structuring. Conventionally, the
nodes are arranged to form a tree, but this is not a requirement of
the format.
</p>
<p>Node names containing periods, commas, colons or parentheses
(including @-commands which produce any of these) can confuse
Info readers.
If it is necessary to refer to a node whose name contains any of
these, the <tt><nodename></tt> should be surrounded by a pair of <tt><del></tt>
characters. There is support in <code>makeinfo</code> for adding these
characters (see <a href="Other-Customization-Variables.html#INFO_005fSPECIAL_005fCHARS_005fQUOTE">INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_QUOTE</a>); however, we don’t
recommend you make use of this support until such time as Info-reading
programs that recognize this syntax are common. See <a href="Node-Line-Requirements.html">Node Line Requirements</a>.
</p>
<p>The use of non-ASCII characters in the names of nodes is permitted,
but can cause problems in cross-references between nodes in Info files
with different character encodings, and also when node names from many
different files are listed (for example, with the <samp>--apropos</samp>
option to the standalone Info browser), so we recommend avoiding them
whenever feasible. For example, prefer the use of the ASCII
apostrophe character (<tt>'</tt>) to Unicode directional quotes.
</p>
<p>The <tt><general text></tt> of the node can include the special constructs
described next.
</p>
<hr>
<div class="header">
<p>
Previous: <a href="Info-Format-Local-Variables.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Info Format Local Variables</a>, Up: <a href="Info-Format-General-Layout.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Info Format General Layout</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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