a statement
Like an a statement in a Quantum program, the a statement in a format file determines the overall appearance and requirements for the table of contents. This includes such things as page length, page width, whether to print lines between entries, how to treat base titles, and so on.
The format of the a statement is:
a;options
where options is a list of keywords from the list below separated by semicolons.
Options
basettl
Print table titles starting with Base under the base column rather than under the title column.
date
Print the date.
delim
Draw a line between entries.
dsp
Print a blank line between entries.
n10
Print the first n10 or n11 statement in the row axis under the base column.
page
Print the page number of the current table of contents page.
paglen=n
Set the page length to n lines.
pagwid=n
Set the page width to n characters.
roman
Print page numbers in roman numerals.
The following options may be preceded by no to turn off the defaults which they define:
basettl
date
delim
dsp
n10
page
roman
section
Default a statement
The default a statement built into tabcon is:
a;pagwid=132;paglen=66;nodsp;nodate;page;nodelim;n10;basettl;noroman
This produces a table of contents with the following characteristics:
▪132 characters per line and 66 lines per page.
▪Single spacing.
▪No date.
▪Page numbers printed in arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, and so on) on each contents page.
▪No lines between entries.
▪The first n10 element in the row axis is printed in the base column of the contents.
▪Base titles starting with the word Base are printed in the base column.
The tabcon defaults are overridden by those in the format file if one has been specified using the -f parameter or if there is a format file named
tc.def in the main Quantum directory, your home directory or the project directory. A standard
tc.def file is distributed with Quantum. For more information, see
Naming the format file.
See also