STARTDOCUMENT

STARTDOCUMENT is a keyword used in certain document processing and markup systems to indicate the beginning of a document's content. It is not part of standard markup languages but rather a directive in custom pipelines or templating environments.

In these contexts, the directive appears at the top of a document stream and is used by parsers to initialize document state, separate metadata from content, and establish a parsing mode. The directive may be case-sensitive and often requires a following newline to separate it from subsequent lines.

Syntax and parsing rules for STARTDOCUMENT vary by implementation. Some systems expect STARTDOCUMENT to be followed by an optional metadata block or immediately by content, while others rely on an explicit closing token such as ENDDOCUMENT. Some environments support in-line metadata lines between STARTDOCUMENT and the main body, with defined fields like Title or Author.

Behaviorally, when STARTDOCUMENT is encountered, the processor typically resets document-level variables, allocates resources for rendering or validation, and switches to content-processing mode. It may trigger validation steps, such as checks for required metadata fields or conformance to a document schema, before content is accepted or transformed.

Example usage in a simple pipeline might include STARTDOCUMENT followed by lines that define metadata and the document body, then ENDDOCUMENT to close the stream. For instance: STARTDOCUMENT, Title: Sample, Author: A. Writer, Content: This is a sample document., ENDDOCUMENT. The exact syntax and requirements depend on the specific markup language or processing framework in which STARTDOCUMENT is implemented.

See also: ENDDOCUMENT, MARKUP, DOCUMENT MODEL.