Help:Magic words

Magic words (including parser functions, variables and behavior switches) are features of wikicode that give instructions to Bulbapedia's underlying MediaWiki software and are especially useful for templates.

• Behavior switches (e.g. __NOTOC__) will change the behavior of a page, rather than return a value.
• Variables (e.g. {{PAGENAME}}) will return a value in their place.
• Parser functions (e.g. {{#ifexpr:Y|Yes|No}}) will take a value and return a value.

Variables and parser functions can use substitution, just like templates. Page-dependent magic words will affect or return data about the current page (by default), even if the word is added through a transcluded template or included system message.

Behavior switches

A behavior switch controls the layout or behavior of the page (if supported by the skin) and can often be used to specify desired omissions and inclusions in the content. Notably some of these are not supported by the Minerva Neue skin.

__NOTOC__

__FORCETOC__

__TOC__

__NOEDITSECTION__

__NEWSECTIONLINK__

__NONEWSECTIONLINK__

__HIDDENCAT__

__EXPECTUNUSEDCATEGORY__

__DISAMBIG__

Variables

Variables return information about the current page, wiki, or date. Their syntax is similar to templates.

Date & time

The following variables return the current date and time in UTC. Due to MediaWiki and browser caching, these variables frequently show when the page was cached rather than the current time.

{{CURRENTYEAR}}

{{CURRENTMONTH}}

{{CURRENTMONTH1}}

{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}

{{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}

{{CURRENTDAY}}

{{CURRENTDAY2}}

{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}

{{CURRENTTIME}}

Technical metadata

{{SITENAME}}

{{SERVERNAME}}

{{REVISIONDAY}}

{{REVISIONDAY2}}

{{REVISIONMONTH}}

{{REVISIONMONTH1}}

{{REVISIONYEAR}}

{{REVISIONUSER}}

Statistics

Numbers returned by these variables normally contain commas but can return raw numbers with the ":R" flag (for example, {{NUMBEROFPAGES}} → 281,317 and {{NUMBEROFPAGES:R}} → 281317).

{{NUMBEROFPAGES}}

{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}

{{NUMBEROFEDITS}}

{{NUMBEROFFILES}}

{{NUMBEROFUSERS}}

{{NUMBEROFADMINS}}

{{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}}

Page modifiers

Page names

{{FULLPAGENAME}}

{{PAGENAME}}

{{BASEPAGENAME}}

{{ROOTPAGENAME}}

{{SUBPAGENAME}}

{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}

{{TALKPAGENAME}}

Namespaces

{{NAMESPACE}}

{{NAMESPACENUMBER}}

{{SUBJECTSPACE}}

{{TALKSPACE}}

Other

{{!}}

{{=}}

Parser functions

Parser functions are very similar to variables but take one or more parameters (technically, any magic word that takes a parameter is a parser function), and the name is sometimes prefixed with a hash (#) to distinguish them from templates.

Parser functions can have an impact on system resources, and thus should be used sparingly, and only when strictly necessary. Typically, parser functions are only used in templates.

For details on available parser functions and how to use them, see:

• mw:Help:Magic words#Parser functions
• mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions
• mw:Extension:WikiSEO

See also

• mw:Help:Magic words