Syntax of arguments of command-line utilities

The following table describes the notation used to document the syntax of arguments of command-line utilities.

Notation

Description

Text without brackets or braces

Text that must be typed as shown

<value>

Placeholder for which a value must be substituted.

[ Text inside square brackets ]

Optional item.

{ Text inside braces }

Set of required items, separated by a vertical bar.

Vertical bar (|)

Separator between mutually exclusive items. At least one must be specified.

Ellipsis (...)

Placed after an item that can be repeated.

Example

Given the following synopsis:

my_utility [-wkt_format {WKT1|WKT2}] [-oo <NAME>=<VALUE>]...
           <datasetname>

The following command lines are valid:

my_utility foo.tif
my_utility -wkt_format WKT1 foo.tif
my_utility -oo FOO=BAR -oo BAR=BAZ foo.tif