An instance represents some variable piece of information that will be used by the command. Arguments can be optional or required. Flags are always preceded by a hyphen and are always optional. This document uses the following typeface conventions. Command and option names appear in bold type in syntax definitions, examples, and running text.
Variable information appears in italic type .
This includes user-supplied information on command lines and the parts of prompts that differ depending on who issues the command. Names of directories, files, server machines, partitions, volumes, and users appear in bold type . New terms appear in italic type . Examples of screen output and file contents appear in monospace type . In addition, the following symbols appear in command syntax definitions, both in the manuals and in AFS online help statements.