Re: [Eric Knauel] spam.el and spamoracle

[Jesper Harder <harder@myrealbox.com>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> By the way (for Gnus Texinfo users), should we use @var in Texinfo?

Yes.

> It's in use here and there, but @code seems much more prevalent.

Yeah, but @code and @var isn't used for the same thing.  @var does not
mean variable -- i.e. a Lisp symbol that's used as a variable.  @var
is only used for metasyntactic variables.  From the Texinfo manual:

,----
|   Use the `@var' command to indicate metasyntactic variables.  A
| "metasyntactic variable" is something that stands for another piece of
| text.  For example, you should use a metasyntactic variable in the
| documentation of a function to describe the arguments that are passed
| to that function.
| 
|   Do not use `@var' for the names of particular variables in
| programming languages.  These are specific names from a program, so
| `@code' is correct for them (see *note code::).  For example, the
| Emacs Lisp variable `texinfo-tex-command' is not a metasyntactic
| variable; it is properly formatted using `@code'.
| 
|   Do not use `@var' for environment variables either; `@env' is correct
| for them (see the next section).
| 
|   The effect of `@var' in the Info file is to change the case of the
| argument to all upper case.  In the printed manual and HTML output, the
| argument is printed in slanted type.
| 
|   For example,
| 
|      To delete file @var{filename},
|      type @samp{rm @var{filename}}.
| 
| produces
| 
|      To delete file FILENAME, type `rm FILENAME'.
`----