Definition lists
Definition lists in Splunk documentation provide structured descriptions, explanations, or associations, ensuring clarity with complete sentences, parallel construction, and proper punctuation.
When you write Splunk documentation, use a definition list to define a set of descriptions, explanations, or associations.
Qualities of definition lists
Definition lists must have the following qualities:
- A complete lead-in sentence
- More than 1 defined term
- 2 levels: The term, which is in bold and on its own line, and the definition, which is at least 1 full sentence on its own line
- Parallel sentence construction
- Sentence case capitalization
- 1 idea for each list
- End punctuation for every definition line
You can add a paragraph break after each definition if the formatting is tight. If you need to use multiple definition lists or organize more content, you might find that a table works better for this purpose. See Including tables.
For more guidance on using lists, see Best practices for writing with lists.
Example
The following example of a definition list contains a complete lead-in sentence. Each item in the list uses parallel construction and complete sentences.
- Raw event search
- A raw event search retrieves events from an index and is typically used to analyze a problem, such as checking error codes, correlating events, investigating security issues, and analyzing failures.
- Transforming search
- A transforming search performs a statistical calculation against a set of results. For example, you can get a daily count of error events, count the login attempts from a user, or calculate the 95th percentile of field values.