Help:Magic words

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

A "magic word" is a symbol which is recognized by the MediaWiki software and which when seen in the non-commented text of the page, triggers the software to do something other than display that symbol, or transclude a page with that name, but instead to use the symbol directly. A magic word can be:

• an upper case word, preceded and followed by two underlines "__", e.g. __NOTOC__
• an XML object, coded similar to HTML, preceded by "<" and followed by ">", e.g. <nowiki>
• a parser function: similar to a template, a word preceded by the symbols "{{" and followed by "}}", and optionally parameter definitions between pipe characters, except that the part before the first pipe (or without pipes, the text between the braces) contains a colon (":"), e.g. {{ns:3}} and {{#ifexpr:{{{1}}}>3|large|small}}
• a variable: similar to a template without parameters, a word preceded by the symbols "{{" and followed by "}}", except the word used is in all upper case, e.g. {{CURRENTDAY}}
• a template modifier
• an image modifier

If a page in the template namespace has the same name as a magic word, the magic word will be invoked instead. If you discover you absolutely have to define a template with the same name as a magic word, prefix the name of the template with "msg:" or the name of the template namespace ("Template:"). See below for further details if you need this feature.

Contents 1 Behavior switches 2 Variables 2.1 Date and time 2.2 Local date and time 2.3 Technical metadata 2.4 Statistics 2.5 Namespaces 2.6 Page names 3 Parser functions 3.1 URLs 3.2 Namespaces 3.3 Formatting 4 Miscellaneous 5 Image modifiers 5.1 Size 5.2 Position 6 Miscellaneous 6.1 See also 7 References

[edit] Behavior switches

For details see Help: Section.

A behavior switch controls the layout or behavior of the page and can often be used to specify desired omissions and inclusions in the content.

Word	Description
Table of Contents
__NOTOC__	Hides the table of contents on the current page.
__FORCETOC__	Forces the table of contents to appear at its normal position (above the first header).
__TOC__	Places a table of contents at the location where the magic word occurs (overriding any __NOTOC__).
Editing
__NOEDITSECTION__	Hides the edit links beside headings.
__NEWSECTIONLINK__	Adds a link ("+" by default) beside the "edit" tab for adding a new section on a non-talk page.
Categories
__NOGALLERY__	Used on a category page; replaces thumbnails in the category view with normal links.
__HIDDENCAT__	Used on a category page; hides the category from the lists of categories in its members and parent categories (there is an option in the user preferences to show them).
Language conversion
__NOCONTENTCONVERT__ __NOCC__	Don't perform the content language conversion (character and phase) in article display; for example, only show Chinese (zh) instead of variants such as zh_cn, zh_tw, zh_sg, and zh_hk.
__NOTITLECONVERT__ __NOTC__	Like __NOCONTENTCONVERT__ but affecting article title only, i.e. don't perform language conversion on the title (all other content is converted).
Other
__INDEX__	Tell search engines to index the page (overrides $wgArticleRobotPolicies, but not robots.txt).
__NOINDEX__	Tell search engines not to index the page (i.e., do not list in search engines' results).
__STATICREDIRECT__	On redirect pages, don't allow MediaWiki to automatically update the link when someone moves a page and checks "Update any redirects that point to the original title".

[edit] Variables

For details see Help: Variable.

Variables return information about the current page, wiki, or date. Their syntax is similar to templates. If a template name conflicts with a variable, the variable will be used (so to transclude the template Template:PAGENAME you would need to write {{Template:PAGENAME}}). In some cases, adding parameters will force the parser to treat a variable as a template; for example, {{CURRENTDAYNAME|x}} transcludes Template:CURRENTDAYNAME.

Variables highlighted in orange are considered 'expensive', and the number that can be included on a page is limited.

[edit] Date and time

The following variables return the current date and time according to the user's timezone preferences, defaulting to the UTC timezone.

Note that if the page was displayed by the same user and has not changed (has not been edited) since the last time it was displayed, it is possible that the page may be cached (by the user's browser) and the displayed time or date may not change. Also, if a heavily used page, rather than freshly rendered by the software each time it is generated, is instead being retrieved from a caching system (such as the main page on Wikipedia) the date or time may not change from the last time the page was originally retrieved by the caching hardware or software.

Word	Example	Description
Year
{{CURRENTYEAR}}	2009	The current year.
Month
{{CURRENTMONTH}}	11	The number of the month, zero-padded.
{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}	November	Same as {{CURRENTMONTH}}, but in named form January .. December.
{{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}	November	Genitive form of the month name; used for Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, etc. [1]
{{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}	Nov	Same as {{CURRENTMONTH}}, but in abbreviated form as Jan .. Dec.
Day
{{CURRENTDAY}}	11	Displays the current day in numeric form.
{{CURRENTDAY2}}	11	Same as {{CURRENTDAY}}, but with leading zero (01 .. 31).
{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}	Wednesday	Name of the day in the language of the project or English.
{{CURRENTDOW}}	3	Same as {{CURRENTDAYNAME}}, but as a number (0=Sunday, 1=Monday...).
Time
{{CURRENTTIME}}	01:00	The current time (00:00 .. 23:59).
{{CURRENTHOUR}}	01	The current hour (00 .. 23).
{{CURRENTMINUTE}}	-0	The current minute (00 .. 59).
Other
{{CURRENTWEEK}}	46	Number of the current week (1-53) according to ISO 8601 with no leading zero.
{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}}	20091111010029	ISO 8601 time stamp.

[edit] Local date and time

The time depending on the local timezone of the wiki (not depending on the timezone in the user's preference settings).

Word	Example	Description
Year
{{LOCALYEAR}}	2009	The local year.
Month
{{LOCALMONTH}}	11	The number 01 .. 12 of the month.
{{LOCALMONTHNAME}}	November	Same as {{LOCALMONTH}}, but in named form as January .. December.
{{LOCALMONTHABBREV}}	Nov	Same as {{LOCALMONTH}}, but in abbreviated form as Jan .. Dec.
Day
{{LOCALDAY}}	11	Displays the local day of the month in numeric form.
{{LOCALDAY2}}	11	Same as {{LOCALDAY}}, but with a leading zero (01 .. 31).
{{LOCALDAYNAME}}	Wednesday	Name of the day in the language of the project or English.
{{LOCALDOW}}	3	Same as {{LOCALDAYNAME}}, but as a number (0=Sunday, 1=Monday...).
Time
{{LOCALTIME}}	01:00	The local time (00:00 .. 23:59).
{{LOCALHOUR}}	01	The local hour (00 .. 23).
Other
{{LOCALWEEK}}	46	Number of the local week (1-53) according to ISO 8601 with no leading zero.
{{LOCALTIMESTAMP}}	20091111010029	ISO 8601 time stamp.

[edit] Technical metadata

Variable	Example	Description
Site
{{SITENAME}}	Memory Alpha	The name of the site ($wgSitename).
{{SERVER}}	http://memory-alpha.org	The base URL of the server ($wgServer).
{{SERVERNAME}}	memory-alpha.org	The name of the server without the protocol ($wgServerName).
{{DIRMARK}} {{DIRECTIONMARK}}	‎ ‎	Outputs a unicode-directional mark that matches the wiki's default language's direction (‎ on left-to-right wikis, ‏ on right-to-left wikis), useful in text with multi-directional text.
{{SCRIPTPATH}}	/en	The base URL path ($wgScriptPath).
{{CURRENTVERSION}}	1.15.1	Returns the current version of the base MediaWiki software installed on the Memory Alpha server. [2]
{{CONTENTLANGUAGE}}	en	Code of the default interface language ($wgLanguageCode).
Latest revision to current page
{{REVISIONID}}	1024232	The unique identifying number of a page, used in comparing two versions of the same page, as when viewing the page history. Note that when editing a page, this value is null.
{{REVISIONDAY}}	18	The day on which the page was last modified.
{{REVISIONDAY2}}	18	The day on which the page was last modified, but with a leading zero (01 .. 31).
{{REVISIONMONTH}}	8	The month in which the page was last modified.
{{REVISIONYEAR}}	2009	The year in which the page was last modified.
{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}	20090818145304	ISO 8601 time stamp, indicating when the page was last modified.
Affects page content
{{DISPLAYTITLE:xyz}}	{{DISPLAYTITLE:five}}	Sets the page's title to xyz. Note that the character count must match with that of the actual title or the displayed title will be unchanged.
{{DEFAULTSORT:xyz}}	{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Harry}}	Sets a default category sort key for the whole current page (i.e. also applies to category tags before this magic word)[1].

[edit] Statistics

Statistics variables give thousands separators unless ":R" for "raw" is added (actually, these versions are parser functions).

Variable	Example	Description
Entire wiki
{{NUMBEROFPAGES}} {{NUMBEROFPAGES:R}}	90,855 90855	Returns the total number of pages on Memory Alpha. [3]
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} {{NUMBEROFARTICLES:R}}	30,995 30995	Returns the total number of articles on Memory Alpha.
{{NUMBEROFFILES}} {{NUMBEROFFILES:R}}	21,977 21977	Returns the number of files uploaded to Memory Alpha (rows in the image table).
{{NUMBEROFEDITS}} {{NUMBEROFEDITS:R}}	1,049,900 1049900	Returns the total number of page edits since MediaWiki, the software that runs Memory Alpha, was installed.
{{NUMBEROFUSERS}} {{NUMBEROFUSERS:R}}	1,677,505 1677505	Returns the number of registered users (rows in the user table).
{{NUMBEROFADMINS}} {{NUMBEROFADMINS:R}}	23 23	Returns the number of administrators (sysop, bureaucrat, steward and checkuser) on Memory Alpha.
{{PAGESINCATEGORY:categoryname}} {{PAGESINCAT:categoryname}}	{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Memory Alpha help}} = 77 {{PAGESINCAT:Memory Alpha help}} = 77	Number of pages in the given category.
{{NUMBERINGROUP:groupname}}	{{NUMBERINGROUP:bureaucrat}} = 2	Number of users in a specific group.

[edit] Namespaces

Variable	Example	Description
{{NAMESPACE}} {{NAMESPACEE}}	Help Help	Name of the namespace the current page resides in.
{{TALKSPACE}} {{TALKSPACEE}}	Help talk Help_talk	Name of next odd namespace (e.g. 4 → 5)
{{SUBJECTSPACE}} {{SUBJECTSPACEE}}	Help Help	Name of last even namespace (e.g. 5 → 4)
{{ARTICLESPACE}} {{ARTICLESPACEE}}	Help Help	An alias for SUBJECTSPACE(E)

[edit] Page names

Variable	Example	Description
{{PAGENAME}} {{PAGENAMEE}}	Magic words Magic_words	Name of the current page, including all levels (Title/Subtitle).
{{BASEPAGENAME}} {{BASEPAGENAMEE}}	Magic words Magic_words	The base name of a subpage ("Title/Other" on "Title/Other/Subtitle").
{{SUBPAGENAME}} {{SUBPAGENAMEE}}	Magic words Magic_words	Name of the current page, excluding parent pages ("Subtitle" on "Title/Other/Subtitle") in namespaces supporting subpages.
{{FULLPAGENAME}} {{FULLPAGENAMEE}}	Help:Magic words Help:Magic_words	Shorthands for NAMESPACE+PAGENAME
{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}} {{SUBJECTPAGENAMEE}}	Help:Magic words Help:Magic_words	FULLPAGENAME in its SUBJECTSPACE
{{ARTICLEPAGENAME}} {{ARTICLEPAGENAMEE}}	Help:Magic words Help:Magic_words	An alias for SUBJECTPAGENAME(E)
{{TALKPAGENAME}} {{TALKPAGENAMEE}}	Help talk:Magic words Help_talk:Magic_words	FULLPAGENAME in its TALKSPACE

[edit] Parser functions

For details see Meta: Parser function.

[edit] URLs

Variable	Example	Description
{{localurl:x y @}} {{localurl:a|b=c}}	/en/wiki/X_y_@ /en/index.php?title=A&b=c	The local URL of a page (might not exist). Optional query parameter, see Variable.
{{fullurl:x y @}} {{fullurl:x y @|a=b}} {{fullurl:m:x y @|b=c}}	http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/X_y_@ http://memory-alpha.org/en/index.php?title=X_y_@&a=b http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/x_y_@?b=c	The full URL of a given page. Optional query parameter as for localurl:.
{{filepath:Wiki.png}} {{filepath:Wiki.png|nowiki}}	http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/b/bc/Wiki.png	The absolute URL to a media file.
{{urlencode:x y @}}	x+y+%40	Encodes variable values for use in external links. [4]
{{anchorencode:x #y @}}	x_.23y_.40	Encodes variable values for use in section anchors. [5]

[edit] Namespaces

{{ns:}} returns the localized name for the namespace with that index.

Content namespaces			Talk namespaces
Usage	Output		Usage	Output
{{ns:-2}} or {{ns:Media}}	Media		{{ns:-1}} or {{ns:Special}}	Special
{{ns:0}}			{{ns:1}} or {{ns:Talk}}	Talk
{{ns:2}} or {{ns:User}}	User		{{ns:3}} or {{ns:User talk}}	User talk
{{ns:4}} or {{ns:Project}}	Memory Alpha		{{ns:5}} or {{ns:Project talk}}	Memory Alpha talk
{{ns:6}} or {{ns:File}} or {{ns:Image}}	File		{{ns:7}} or {{ns:File talk}} or {{ns:Image talk}}	File talk
{{ns:8}} or {{ns:MediaWiki}}	MediaWiki		{{ns:9}} or {{ns:MediaWiki talk}}	MediaWiki talk
{{ns:10}} or {{ns:Template}}	Template		{{ns:11}} or {{ns:Template talk}}	Template talk
{{ns:12}} or {{ns:Help}}	Help		{{ns:13}} or {{ns:Help talk}}	Help talk
{{ns:14}} or {{ns:Category}}	Category		{{ns:15}} or {{ns:Category talk}}	Category talk
{{ns:100}} or {{ns:Forum}}	Forum		{{ns:101}} or {{ns:Forum talk}}	Forum talk
{{ns:102}} or {{ns:Portal}}	Portal		{{ns:103}} or {{ns:Portal talk}}	Portal talk

[edit] Formatting

Word	Example	Description
{{lc:string}}	{{lc:AbC dEf}} = abc def	Lowercases all characters of a string.
{{lcfirst:string}}	{{lcfirst:Ab Cd}} = ab Cd	Lowercases the first character of a string.
{{uc:string}}	{{uc:aBc DeF}} = ABC DEF	Uppercases all characters of a string.
{{ucfirst:string}}	{{ucfirst:aB cD}} = AB cD	Uppercases the first character of a string.
{{formatnum:unformatted number}} {{formatnum:formatted number | R}}	{{formatnum:-299792458.56789}} = -299,792,458.56789 {{formatnum:-299,792,458.56789 | R}} = -299792458.56789	Adds or removes decimal separators to a number. Leading plus or minus is recognized.
{{padleft:string | length}} {{padleft:string | length | padstring}} {{padright:string | length}} {{padright:string | length | padstring}}	{{padleft:7 | 3}} = 007 {{padleft:0 | 3}} = 000 {{padleft:bcd | 6 | a}} = aaabcd {{padright:bcd | 6 | a}} = bcdaaa {{padleft:café | 8 | -}} = ----café {{padleft:cafe | 8 | -}} = ----cafe {{padleft:bcd | 6 | {{!}}}} = |||bcd	Pads a string with a character to the specified width; the default character is 0. Note that there's a little bug that interprets non-US-ASCII characters as two, instead of one character (see the difference in café and cafe in the examples). It does not seem possible to use padleft and padright for padding with characters with a multi-character code, such as  , which would be useful with padleft for sorting tables with Javascript.
{{plural:count | form1 | form2}}	{{plural: 2 | is | are}} outputs are {{plural: 0 | this | these}} outputs these	count 1 yields form1 (singular), all other values for count yield form2 (plural); plural transformations are used for languages like Russian [6] based on "count mod 10".
{{grammar:case | word}}	{{grammar:7sg|Wikipedie}} on cs: is Wikipedií.	Derived word forms in inflected languages like Czech. [7]

• "Plural" and "Grammar" are language-dependent functions, defined in [8], [9], etc. (note that in PHP, the modulo operator is the percent sign).

• "Grammar" can either be applied to predefined words only, or to arbitrary words, depending on whether the definition is just a 2D array, or involves string manipulations. See also Wikipedia:cs:Šablona:Wikivar/GRAMMAR.

[edit] Miscellaneous

Usage	Output	Description
{{int:xyz}}	{{int:edit}} = edit this page	Internationalizes (translates) the given interface (MediaWiki namespace) message into the user language; rendered as <xyz> if MediaWiki:xyz doesn't exist. See also System messages.
{{#language:language_code}}	{{#language:da}} = Dansk	Native name of language code.
{{#tag:tagname}}	{{#tag:myextension | attr=val | attr2=val2 | content}} = <myextension attr=val attr2=val2>content</myextension>	Passes attributes and inner content to an XML-style parser tag, parsing template variables along the way. See Extension:TagParser.
{{:xyz}}		A bare colon is not a template modifier, it's the prefix for the main namespace. Test e.g. article {{:UTC}} vs. template {{UTC}}. Using this syntax you include the text of the main namespace article xyz in another article.
{{msg:xyz}}		Even if there is a magic word named "xyz", use template:xyz unless the template doesn't exist (equivalent to {{template:xyz}}). Normally, magic words have priority when there is a conflict.
{{msgnw:xyz}}		The unevaluated wikitext is rendered. See msgnw.
{{raw:xyz}}		Equivalent to {{msg:xyz}} above[2].
{{subst:xyz}}		In the wikitext, the tag is substituted by the content (single-level evaluation only); see Substitution.

[edit] Image modifiers

For details see Wikipedia: Extended image syntax.

These are image modifiers used in [[Image:title.ext|modifier|...|modifier]] links. Some are mutually exclusive, and then the last specified wins.

[edit] Size

The last unrecognized modifier is used as a caption for framed images or together with thumbnails. It's also used as a description, i.e. alt=text.

Word	Usage	Description
framed frame enframed	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|framed]]	Places an image in a frame with a description. Uses original image size.
border	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|border]]	Displays a 1px border around the image.
thumbnail thumb	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|thumbnail]]	Modifies image size, sets it to dependent on user's favorite thumbnail size in their preferences.
thumb=xyz	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|thumb=Wiki.png]]	Manualthumb: instead of displaying an automatically-sized thumbnail for Mediawiki.png, displays the image Wiki.png.
width px n1xn2 px	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|40px]] [[Image:Mediawiki.png|100x200px]]	Scales image to given width in pixels. Scales image to no more than n1 pixels wide and no more than n2 high, but image scaled to retain its true aspect ratio within the boundary specified.

[edit] Position

For details see Meta: Images and other uploaded files.

The positions are mutually exclusive; the last specified wins. <br clear="all" /> can stop floating. For inline images, only the modifier px (see above) is supported.

Word	Usage	Description
right	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|right]]	Modifies position, floats the image to the right.
left	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|left]]	Modifies position, floats the image to the left.
none	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|none]]	Explicitly states that the image should not float.
center centre	[[Image:Mediawiki.png|center]]	Modifies position, like none but centered.

[edit] Miscellaneous

Word	Example	Description
#REDIRECT	#REDIRECT [[target]] at top of source page	Creates a redirect to another page.

[edit] See also

• ParserFunctions at MediaWiki (#expr:, #if:, #ifeq:, #iferror:, #ifexpr:, #ifexist:, #rel2abs:, #switch:, #time:, #timel:, #titleparts:)
• Magic words at MediaWiki
• Source for Language.php
• Source for MagicWord.php

[edit] References