The syntax rail-diagrams that currently get created are wrong in the areas, 
where there are optional
arguments. The optional arguments are not identifiable and it is not clear what 
the default values
would be, if an optional value is left out.

This is probably due to a limitation in the rail-diagram tool that is being 
used, which I understand
is some service on the WWW which has these limitations. Judging from studying 
the thread that David
Ashley started (2014-07-31, 17:57) 
<https://sourceforge.net/p/oorexx/mailman/message/32669824/>
until the last post where this shortcoming was pointed out, without any further 
feedback by David
Ashley: <https://sourceforge.net/p/oorexx/mailman/message/32699294/> 
(2014-08-09, 18:32, by J.
Leslie Turriff).

---

Not all developers may be aware, that years before that Jean-Louis has suggested
svn-syntax-rail-diagrams to replace the (rather ugly) 
ASCII-syntax-rail-diagrams already. He not
only suggested it but did all the necessary work and came up with beautiful 
PDFs and HTMLs
renderings that include syntax rail-diagrams that are able to document optional 
arguments and
default values. Unfortunately (and for no apparent reasons that I am aware of), 
years ago, his hard
work was not picked up and put into production for the ooRexx distributions.

Maybe it is worthwhile at this point of development to take a look at the 
different presentations of
syntax-rail-diagrams,

  * rendered as ASCII-snytax-rail-diagrams (just load the ooRexx 4.2.0 
rexxref.pdf from your ooRexx
    installation),
  * the current 5.0 rexxref.pdf rendering (thanks to Erich in his svn-sandbox,
    'sandbox/erich/docs/build' which one gets when checking out the ooRexx 
project with svn) at
    
<https://sourceforge.net/p/oorexx/code-0/HEAD/tarball?path=/sandbox/erich/docs/build>
 named
    "rexxref5.pdf" and
  * the ooRexx 4.2.0 rexxref.pdf by Jean-Louis at
    <https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20049088/oorexx/docs/trunk/index.html>.

You can find all three versions of the PDF-documentation at
<http://wi.wu.ac.at/rgf/rexx/tmp/docs.tmp/> so it is easier for you to load and 
compare them (listed
in the same order is above):

  * ooRexx 4.2.0 official ASCII-syntax-rail-diagrams:
    <http://wi.wu.ac.at/rgf/rexx/tmp/docs.tmp/rexxref.pdf>,
  * ooRexx 5.0.0, Erich's preliminary rendering 
<http://wi.wu.ac.at/rgf/rexx/tmp/docs.tmp/rexxref5.pdf>,
  * ooRexx 4.2.0, Jean Louis's renderings:
    <http://wi.wu.ac.at/rgf/rexx/tmp/docs.tmp/rexxref4.2-jlf.pdf>.

Then in all three versions go to chapter "Functions -> Built-in Functions -> 
Stream" and compare the
syntax rail-diagrams of the three, and I think you will see for yourself, why I 
suggest to go with
Jean-Louis' solution for creating correct and still very nice looking syntax 
rail-diagrams for the
project.

---rony

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