Special markup for MediaWiki
Magic words
(including
parser functions
,
variables
and
behavior switches
) are features of
wiki markup
that give instructions to Wikipedia's underlying
MediaWiki
software. For example, magic words can suppress or position the table of contents, disable indexing by external search engines, and produce output dynamically based on the current page or on user-defined conditional logic. Some of these features are especially useful for
templates
.
This page is a quick reference for magic words. For more information, refer to the main MediaWiki documentation:
General information
In general, there are three types of magic words.
- Behavior switches
: often appear in double underscores, all uppercase, e.g.,
__NOTOC__
. They will change the behavior of a page, rather than return a value.
- Parser functions
: all in lowercase. A parser function will be followed by colon and pipe-separated parameters, e.g.,
{{#ifexpr:Y|Yes|No}}
, wrapped in double braces. They will take a value and return a value.
- Variables
: these are all uppercase, e.g.,
{{PAGENAME}}
. A variable will be wrapped in double braces and will return a value in its place.
The software generally interprets magic words in the following way:
- Magic words are
case sensitive
.
- White space
is generously allowed for readability. It will be stripped from the start and end of their keywords and parameters (as is also done in template calls using named parameters).
- They can be
transcluded
, even variables "about the current page". This is ensured by the parsing order.
- Instead of magically transforming into HTML instructions,
<
nowiki
>
tags remove this magic so a magic word can itself be displayed (documented), e.g.
<nowiki>{{#magic:}}</nowiki>
or
{{#magic:<nowiki/>}}
.
Magic words compared to templates:
- As with templates, magic words can be
transcluded
and
substituted
.
- The names of magic words are purposely chosen to be unlike the names of templates, and vice versa. Many parser function names will begin with a
#
(
pound or hash
), but template names
will not start with a
#
, and probably not end in a
:
(colon), or be all-uppercase.
- The first parameter's syntax differs. In
{{#magic: p1 | p2 | p3}}
, the name is
#magic
and it is followed by an unspaced
:
and a required input parameter,
p1
. With a template,
p1
is optional and it is preceded by a
|
(pipe) instead of a
:
, e.g.
{{template|p1}}
.
Most magic words can be used in any needed locations on a page; see
MOS:ORDER
for guidance on where to place magic words that are behavior switches.
Behavior switches
Variables
"WP:VAR" redirects here. For policies and guidelines with WP:*VAR shortcuts, mostly about style matters, see
WP:VARS
.
Note:
The magic words above can also take a parameter, in order to parse values on a page other than the current page. A colon (
:
) is used to pass the parameter, rather than a pipe (
|
) that is used in templates, like
{{MAGICWORD:value}}
. For example,
{{TALKPAGENAME:Wikipedia:MOS}}
returns
Wikipedia talk:MOS
on any page.
Note:
In the "Category" and "Category talk" namespaces, to wikilink (some) page name variables may require
prefixing a colon
to avoid unwanted categorization.
For more details on parser functions that relate to page names and namespaces, see:
meta:Help:Page name §?Variables and parser functions
.
Other variables by type
Parser functions
Metadata
Page IDs can be associated with articles via wikilinks (i.e.
Special:Redirect/page/3235121
goes to this page).
To output numbers without comma
separators
(for example, as "123456789" rather than "123,456,789"), append the parameter
|R
.
Formatting
Paths
Conditional
If, in these conditional functions,
empty
unnamed parameters are to be parsed as empty rather than as text (i.e. as empty rather than as the text "{{{1}}}", "{{{2}}}", etc.), they will require trailing pipes (i.e.
{{{1|}}}
,
{{{2|}}}
, etc., rather than
{{{1}}}
,
{{{2}}}
, etc.).
Other
Substituting and nesting
Magic words can sometimes behave weirdly when
substituted
or nested. It's possible to subst some magic words (so that the page stops being updated if the value of the word changes). Here are some examples of how this works:
See also
Notes
- ^
If
{{FULLPAGENAME}}
is used in a page that is
transcluded
from another page, it will return the name of the target.
Module:TEMPLATENAME
can be used to determine the name of the template itself.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
{{CURRENTDAY}}
,
{{LOCALDAY}}
and
{{REVISIONDAY}}
return the day (e.g. "
6
"), whilst
{{CURRENTDAY2}}
,
{{LOCALDAY2}}
and
{{REVISIONDAY2}}
return the day with zero-padding (e.g. "
06
"). For all two-digit days (i.e. 10 to 31), these are the same.
- ^
a
b
c
These timestamp outputs can be formatted with
{{
Format revisiontimestamp
}}
(aka
{{
FRTS
}}
). For example, {{
FRTS
|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}}} turns "20240602110819" into "2024-06-02 11:08:19".
- ^
This shows the last user to edit the page. There is no way to show the user viewing the page with magic words due to technical restrictions.
- ^
a
b
This function is an
expensive
parser function.