The index file describes to the index navigator the content and layout of the index. The format of the index file is based on the World Wide Web Consortium Extended Markup Language (XML). The following is a very small example of an index file:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='ISO-8859-1' ?>
   <!DOCTYPE index
     PUBLIC 
     "-//Sun Microsystems Inc.//DTD 
      JavaHelp Index Version 2.0//EN"
     "http://java.sun.com/products/javahelp/index_2_0.dtd">
   <index version="2.0">
      <indexitem text=".prof extension (profile data)" 
                 target="prof.profile" />
      <indexitem text="accelerators (keyboard), see 'keyboard commands'" />
      <indexitem text="adding existing portfolio" target="proj.import" />
      <indexitem text="adding existing project">
         <indexitem text="naming project" target="proj.importdirectory" />
         <indexitem text="naming storage directory" 
                    target="proj.importdirectory" />
         <indexitem text="procedures for" target="proj.importproject2" />
      </indexitem>
      <indexitem text="analyzing program performance, see 'profiler'" />
      <indexitem text="Java Applets">
         <indexitem text="overview" target="applet_over"
                    presentationtype="javax.help.SecondaryWindow 
                    presentationname="mainsw">
         <indexitem text="editing in content page" 
                    target="applet_editing">
         <indexitem text="inserting in content page" 
                    target="applet_insert">
      </indexitem>
   </index>
The following table describes the index tags:
| <index> | Defines the index. It can contains <indexitem>tags and 
      the following optional attributes.
 | ||||||||||||||
| <indexitem> | Defines an index entry. Nesting entry1 within entry2 defines 
        entry2 to be hierarchically contained within entry1. Uses 
        the following attributes: 
 | 
 See also:
See also: