8.3 Parts of a Cross Reference

A cross reference command requires only one argument, which is the name of the node to which it refers. But a cross reference command may contain up to four additional arguments. By using these arguments, you can provide a cross reference name for Info, a topic description or section title for the printed output, the name of a different Info file, and the name of a different printed manual.

Here is a simple cross reference example:

     @xref{Node name}.

which produces

     *Note Node name::.

and

See Section nnn [Node name], page ppp.

Here is an example of a full five-part cross reference:

     @xref{Node name, Cross Reference Name, Particular Topic,
     info-file-name, A Printed Manual}, for details.

which produces

     *Note Cross Reference Name: (info-file-name)Node name,
     for details.

in Info and

See section “Particular Topic” in A Printed Manual, for details.

in a printed book.

The five possible arguments for a cross reference are:

1. The node or anchor name (required). This is the location to which the cross reference takes you. In a printed document, the location of the node provides the page reference only for references within the same document.
2. The cross reference name for the Info reference, if it is to be different from the node name. If you include this argument, it becomes the first part of the cross reference. It is usually omitted.
3. A topic description or section name. Often, this is the title of the section. This is used as the name of the reference in the printed manual. If omitted, the node name is used.
4. The name of the Info file in which the reference is located, if it is different from the current file. You need not include any `.info' suffix on the file name, since Info readers try appending it automatically.
5. The name of a printed manual from a different Texinfo file.

The template for a full five argument cross reference looks like this:

     @xref{node-name, cross-reference-name, title-or-topic,
     info-file-name, printed-manual-title}.

Cross references with one, two, three, four, and five arguments are described separately following the description of @xref.

Write a node name in a cross reference in exactly the same way as in the @node line, including the same capitalization; otherwise, the formatters may not find the reference.

You can write cross reference commands within a paragraph, but note how Info and TeX format the output of each of the various commands: write @xref at the beginning of a sentence; write @pxref only within parentheses, and so on.