preformat-type Type of Preformatted Text

Type of content contained in the <preformat> element (for example, shape poetry, ASCII art, hand-created tabulations using tabs and spaces, etc.).

Usage/Remarks

Many journal tag sets make distinctions among different types of preformatted text (some by means of attributes, others with distinct elements). In this Tag Set, there are two elements to handle preformatted material:
  • the <code> to hold computer programs, tagged XML documents, samples of XML DTDs or schemas, etc., and the
  • <preformat> element, which contains non-code material such as ASCII art, man-machine dialogs, tabular material made with tabs and whitespace, and formatted poetry.
The distinctions between different types of preformatted text can be preserved using the @preformat-type attribute, for example, by recording the content type of the text, such as “ascii-art”.
OPTIONAL on element: <preformat>
Value Meaning
Text, numbers, or special characters A word or phrase that describes the content or names the type of content for the <preformat> element, for example, “poetry” for a formatted poem laid out as a tree or “man-machine” for a man-machine dialog.
Restriction @preformat-type is an optional attribute; there is no default.

Suggested usage

Although designed to accept any text as its value, potential values for this attribute might include:
poetry
Poems
ascii
ASCII art
man-machine
A man-machine dialog, such as an error message and response
tabular
Tabular structures created by using spacing and tabs rather than tagging the row and column content
Tagged Sample

Error message

...
<preformat preformat-type="dialog" xml:space="preserve"
  position="anchor">
 C:\users\lap make
   'make' is not recognized as:
     - an internal or external command
     - an operable program
     - a batch file
</preformat>
...