The DTL tags act as control words that determine how the text in the source files is used. Each tag is enclosed within a set of delimiter symbols that distinguish the tag as a control word (as opposed to general text). Start tags, which initiate text interpretation, are preceded by the start tag open delimiter (<) and followed by the close delimiter (>). End tags, which explicitly end text interpretation, are preceded by the end tag open delimiter (</) and followed by the close delimiter (>).

<panel>
</panel>

DTL tags are free-form. Indentation of nested tags can be helpful for DTL source file readability.

All of the text that you define between a start and end tag is the tag definition. The DTL tag data extends to the right boundary of the source file. Therefore, DTL source files cannot contain line sequence numbers. The characteristics of the tag determine how the text or other tags coded within the tag definition is formatted.

End tags are not required for all DTL tags. In many cases, the tag is implicitly ended by other start tags. For this reason, optional end tags are not used in the markup examples in this information. Tag reference contains a detailed description of each DTL tag, and indicates when a tag needs a corresponding end tag.