Throughout this manual, the term “DOS” refers to both MS-DOSÒ and PC-DOS, except when noting features that are unique to one or the other.
NOTE:
Microsoft documentation uses the term “OS/2” to refer to the OS/2 systems— Microsoft Operating System/2Ò (MSÒ OS/2Ò) and IBMÒ OS/2Ò. Similarly, the term “DOS” refers to the Microsoft MS-DOS and IBM Personal Computer DOS operating systems. The name of a specific operating system is used when it is necessary to note features that are unique to that system.
The following document conventions are used throughout this manual:
| Convention | Description of Convention |
| Bold text | Bold letters indicate a specific term or punctuation mark intended to be used literally: language keywords or functions (such as EXETYPE or CreateWindow), and DOS commands. You must type these terms and punctuation marks exactly as shown. However, the use of uppercase or lowercase letters is not always significant. |
| ( ) | In syntax statements, parentheses enclose one or more parameters that you pass to a function. |
| Italic text | Words in italics indicate a placeholder; you are expected to provide the actual value. For example, the following syntax for the SetCursorPos function indicates that you must substitute values for the X and Y coordinates, separated by a comma: |
| SetCursorPos(X, Y) | |
| Monospaced type | Code examples are displayed in a nonproportional typeface. |
| BEGIN . . . END | Vertical ellipses in program examples indicate that a portion of the program is omitted. |
| . . . | Ellipses following an item indicate that more items having the same form may appear. In the following example, the horizontal ellipses indicate that you can specify more than one breakaddress for the g command: |
| g [[=startaddress]] [[breakaddress]]... | |
| [[ ]] | Double brackets enclose optional fields or parameters in command lines and syntax statements. In the following example, option and executable-file are optional parameters of the RC command: |
| RC [[option]] filename [[executable-file]] | |
| | | A vertical bar indicates that you may enter one of the entries shown on either side of the bar. The following command-line syntax illustrates the use of a vertical bar: |
| DB [[address | range]] | |
| The bar indicates that following the Dump Bytes command (DB), you can specify either an address or a range. | |
| “ ” | Quotation marks set off terms defined in the text. |
| { } | Curly braces indicate that you must specify one of the enclosed items. |
| SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS | Small capital letters indicate the names of keys and key sequences, such as: |
| ALT + SPACEBAR | |
| A box containing a Microsoft Windows version number indicates that a function, message, or data structure is compatible only with the specified version and later versions. |