| This template is used in
MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-URL
, and on
approximately 396,000 pages, or roughly 1% of all pages
.
Changes to it can cause immediate changes to the Wikipedia user interface.
To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's
/sandbox
or
/testcases
subpages, or in your own
user subpage
. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Please discuss changes on the
talk page
before implementing them.
|
| This template uses
Lua
:
|
This template creates a formatted external link. It formats the appearance of
displayed
URLs, while making them
machine-readable
as part of emitted
microformat
meta-data, inside templates such as infoboxes.
Note:
If you wish to display text instead of the URL (e.g.
website
instead of
example
.com
), please
do not use this template
. Instead, consider using normal
wiki markup
or
Template:Official website
. Displaying text instead of the url will render the microformat data invalid.
For web-based references, please see
Wikipedia:Citation templates
.
Usage
{{URL|
example.com
}}
- The first parameter is parsed to decide whether it is a complete URL. If it doesn't start with a URI scheme (such as "http:", "https:", or "ftp:"), the prefix "http://" is prepended to the specified generated target URL of the link.
- Parameter 2 (
{{URL|
url name
|
optional display text
}}
) is
deprecated
. See
note
above for more information and alternative templates.
URL with = character should use numbered parameters
If the URL contains an equals sign, as is common in a query string, the parameter
|1=
should be used for the URL (
{{URL|1=
example.com
}}
). This applies when the value of the URL is unknown, for example, when this template is used in another template specifying the effective URL as a variable value
The template attempts to handle simple cases where a URL containing an equals sign is specified without the necessary
|1=
, but it is still better practice to pass it in.
The
deprecated
second parameter for the displayed text, if present in legacy uses,
must
also be explicitly numbered if the first parameter is explicitly numbered (
{{URL|1=
url name
|2=
optional display text
}}
); otherwise it will override the value of the first parameter:
Examples
The template displays an instructional message if there is no input:
{{URL| }}
→
{{
URL
|
example.com
|
optional display text
}}
The template wraps the output in
<span class="url">...</span>
(see
§ Microformat
) and adds
<wbr/>
before displayed periods:
The use of
http://
,
https://
, a
protocol-relative URL
, or a different protocol is preserved in the URL but is not shown in the
link text
:
If the path is only a slash (
/
) it is not displayed in the link text:
The template also adds
<wbr/>
before any displayed slashes (
/
) in the path:
Upper case in the
domain name
is preserved in the URL, but not in the link text (upper case in the path is not changed):
For a URL containing an equal sign (
=
), use
|1=
:
The template currently supports an optional second parameter which is used as the link text, though its use is discouraged (see
note
):
The URL may be obtained from
Wikidata
as shown in this example for
Audi AG
(Q23317)
, where the property
official website
(P856)
contains
https://www.audi.com
:
Microformat
The template wraps the
displayed
URL with a
class="url"
so that it is included in any parent
microformat
which takes a URL parameter – see
our microformats project
.
TemplateData
Template parameters
[
Edit template data
]
Parameter
| Description
| Type
| Status
|
---|
URL
| 1
| The URL to be linked
| String
| required
|
---|
Display text
| 2
| The text to be displayed instead of the URL. Deprecated
| String
| deprecated
|
---|
Maintenance categories
See also