M:Help:Magic words

See Help:Magic words on www.mediawiki.org for more magic words in the MediaWiki software. The page here is currently kept for things not yet merged to www.mediawiki.org and for documentation specific to the Wikimedia Foundation. If something is missing from both pages, check the full version of this page and restore the lacking information.

This is an organized index of magic words used in MediaWiki.

A "magic word" is a symbol 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:

• a behavior switch, called using an upper case word, preceded and followed by pairs of underscores, e.g. __NOTOC__
• XML-style tags, preceded by "<" (and for the end tag "/") and followed by ">", as in <nowiki>...</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.

Variables

For details see Help:Variable

Template modifiers

Usage	Explanation
{{: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.
{{int:xyz}}	Same as {{MediaWiki:xyz}}, except standard message translation is applied depending on subpages and content/user/uselang language. Another difference is: this doesn't appear under "Modèle utilisé par cette page :". Rendered as ⧼xyz⧽ if MediaWiki:xyz doesn't exist. See also Help:System message.
{{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 unexpanded wikitext is rendered (more or less, for details see msgnw).
{{raw:xyz}}	[MW1.6+] Equivalent to {{msg:xyz}} above.
{{subst:xyz}}	In the wikitext, the tag is substituted by the content (single-level evaluation only), see Help:Substitution.

Image modifiers

For details see w:en:Wikipedia:Extended image syntax.

These are image modifiers used in [[File:title.ext|modifier|...|modifier]] links. Some are mutually exclusive, and then the last specified wins. The last unrecognized modifier is used as caption for framed images or together with thumbnails. It's also used as description alt=text.

Size

Word	Usage	Explanation
framed frame enframed	[[File:Mediawiki.png|framed]]	Places an image in a frame with a description. Uses original size and stubbornly ignores width parameter if given. In general, far better to use thumb, as is only suitable for small images.
border	[[File:Mediawiki.png|border]]	Shows a 1 pixel border around the image.
thumbnail thumb	[[File:Mediawiki.png|thumbnail]]	Modifies image size, sets it dependent on user's favorite thumbnail size in one's preferences, or on the given width parameter (see hereafter).
thumb=xyz	[[File:Mediawiki.png|thumb=Wiki.png]]	Manual thumbnail: instead of displaying an automatically-sized thumbnail for Mediawiki.png, display the image Wiki.png.
width px 100x200px	[[File:Mediawiki.png|40px]] [[File:Mediawiki.png|100x200px]]	Scales image to given width  in pixels. Scales image to no more than 100 pixels wide and no more than 200 high, but image scaled to retain its true aspect ratio within the boundary specified.

Position

For details see Help:Images and other uploaded files.

The positions are mutually exclusive; the last specified wins. Template:Clear can stop floating. For inline images only modifier px (see hereinbefore) is supported.

Word	Usage	Explanation
right	[[File:Mediawiki.png|right]]	Sets top of image to the right margin, text will flow from the left.
left	[[File:Mediawiki.png|left]]	Sets top of image to the left margin, content text will flow from the right.
none	[[File:Mediawiki.png|none]]	Image will be alone at left, content text will not appear with image.
center centre	[[File:Mediawiki.png|center]]	Like none with image centered.

Miscellany

Word	Example	Explanation
{{DISPLAYTITLE:xyz}}	no inline output	[MW 1.7+] Modify the page's title [1], enabled in Wikimedia projects since June 2007 ([2]). Also see Modèle:H:mwg.
{{DIRMARK}} {{DIRECTIONMARK}}	‎ ‎	[MW 1.7+] U+200E left-to-right or U+200D right-to-left mark.
{{CONTENTLANGUAGE}}	fr	[MW 1.7+] Code of the site's default interface language (Modèle:H:mwg).
{{DEFAULTSORT:xyz}}	no inline output	[MW 1.10+] Sets a default category sort key for the whole current page (also applying for category tags before this tag).
#REDIRECT	#REDIRECT [[target]] at top of source page	Creates a redirect to another page (to the target page).

Despite its name, MAGICNUMBER is no magic word, the ISBN magic works only on the MediaWiki:Booksources page used by Special:Booksources, but talking about [[{{ns:4}}:{{int:Booksources}}|{{ns:8}}:Booksources]] in a way working on any MediaWiki installation is esoteric enough to be noted here.

Language-dependent word conversions

Word	Example	Explanation
{{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}	avril	Genitive form of month name used for Czech, Polish, Ukrainian[3]
{{LOCALMONTHNAMEGEN}}	avril	Genitive form of month name used for Czech, Polish, Ukrainian (local time)
{{grammar:case | word }}	{{grammar:7sg|Wikipedie}} on cs: is Wikipedií.	Derived word forms in inflected languages like Czech [4]
{{plural:count |form1 |form2 }} {{plural:count |1st | 2nd | 3rd }}	{{plural: 2 | is | are }} outputs are {{plural: 1 | this | these }} outputs this {{plural: 0 | his | their }} outputs his	count 1 yields form1 (singular), plural transformations are used for languages like Russian [5] based on "count mod 10".

"Grammar" and "Plural" are language-dependent functions, defined in [6], [7], 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.

"Plural" is a site-language-dependent switch function, controlled by function convertPlural in Language.php (which distinguishes between 1 and "not 1"), for some languages overridden in Languagexx.php, e.g. for French (which distinguishes between <=1 and >1) and Russian, which uses a grammar case for amounts ending in 1 (1, 21, 31,...), another case for amounts ending in 2 to 4 (2, 3, 4, 22, 23, 24, ...) and still another case for the remaining quantities.

As opposed to ParserFunctions, "plural" accepts points and commas in numbers and interprets them in a site-language-specific way (depending on $separatorTransformTable in Messagesxx.php); on this site:

• {{plural:1.000|a|b|c}} gives a
• {{plural:1,000|a|b|c}} gives a

(on e.g. the German and the Dutch sites reversed w.r.t. the result on English sites).

"Plural" is used in various system messages, e.g. Modèle:Msg, where it uses interface language instead of site language.

See also

• ParserFunctions #expr:, #if:, #ifeq:, etc.
• mw:Manual:Magic words
• Source for Language.php
• Source for MagicWord.php
• Adding parser functions
• mw:Extension:Variables : MediaWiki extension to add new magic words

Notes and references