[CentOS-docs] Format for giving examples of commands

Sun Jun 17 18:37:07 UTC 2012
Yves Bellefeuille <yan at storm.ca>

Hello,

Is there a standard format for quoting examples of commands to be 
entered by the user?

I've given the following example commands:

cd /tmp
wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-beta-static
cd /opt
tar xjvf /tmp/skype_static-4.0.0.7.tar.bz2
rm /tmp/skype_static-4.0.0.7.tar.bz2
ln -s skype_staticQT-4.0.0.7 skype

Someone changed them to add prompts:

[root at host]# cd /tmp
[root at host]# wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-beta-static
[root at host]# cd /opt
[root at host]# tar xjvf /tmp/skype_static-4.0.0.7.tar.bz2
[root at host]# rm /tmp/skype_static-4.0.0.7.tar.bz2
[root at host]# ln -s skype_staticQT-4.0.0.7 skype

I think my way is better, since the user can simply copy and paste the 
entire example into a terminal. Conversely, with a prompt, there's no 
chance that the example will be confused with a program listing, but I 
don't think that's likely to happen.

Is either format preferred?

Yves

-- 
Yves Bellefeuille <yan at storm.ca>
"La Esperanta Civito ne rifuzas anticipe la kunlaboron de erarintoj, se
ili konscias pri sia eraro." -- Heroldo Komunikas, n-ro 473.