Help:Magic words

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Magic words are strings of text that MediaWiki associates with a return value or function, such as time, site details, or page names. This page is about usage of standard magic words; for a technical reference, see Manual:Magic words.

General notes

• Inheritance: page-dependent magic words will affect or return data about the current page, regardless of whether it is in the page code or a transcluded template.

Behaviour switches

A behaviour switch controls the layout of the page. They are written as a magic word wrapped with double underscores.

Word	Description	Versions
Table of contents
__NOTOC__	Hides the table of contents (TOC).
__FORCETOC__	Forces the table of content to appear at its normal position (above the first header).
__TOC__	Places a table of contents at the word's current position (overriding __NOTOC__). If this is used multiple times, the table of contents will appear at the first word's position.
Editing
__NOEDITSECTION__	Hides the section edit links beside headings.
__NEWSECTIONLINK__	Adds a link (("+" by default) beside the "edit" tab for adding a new section on a non-talk page (see m:Help:Section#Adding a section at the end).	1.7+
Categories
__NOGALLERY__	Used on a category page, replaces thumbnails in the category view with normal links.	1.7+
__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).	1.13+
Language conversion
__NOCONTENTCONVERT__ __NOCC__	On wikis with language variants, don't perform any content language conversion (character and phase) in article display; for example, only show Chinese (zh) instead of variants like zh_cn, zh_tw, zh_sg, or zh_hk.
__NOTITLECONVERT__ __NOTC__	On wikis with language variants, don't perform language conversion on the title (all other content is converted).
Other
__END__	Explicitly marks the end of the article, to prevent MediaWiki from removing trailing whitespace. Removed in 19213.
__START__	No effect.

Variables

The syntax of variables is similar to templates, but capitalized to help avoid conflicts. If a template has the same name and case as a variable, the variable will be used. Usage of the template can be forced by adding the "msg:" modifier (for example, "{{msg:CURRENTYEAR}}"). In some cases, adding parameters will force the parser to treat a variable as a template; for example, {{CURRENTDAYNAME|x}} tries to transclude "Template:CURRENTDAYNAME".

Date & time

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

Due to MediaWiki and browser caching, these variables frequently show when the page was cached rather than the current time.

Variable	Output	Description	Versions
Year
{{CURRENTYEAR}}	2024	Year
Month
{{CURRENTMONTH}}	11	Month (zero-padded number)
{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}	November	Month (name)
{{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}	November	Month (genitive form)
{{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}	Nov	Month (abbreviation)	1.5+
Day
{{CURRENTDAY}}	24	Day of the month (unpadded number)
{{CURRENTDAY2}}	24	Day of the month (zero-padded number)	1.6+
{{CURRENTDOW}}	0	Day of the week (unpadded number)
{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}	Sunday	Day of the week (name)
Time
{{CURRENTTIME}}	11:22	Time (24-hour HH:mm format)
{{CURRENTHOUR}}	11	Hour (24-hour zero-padded number)
Other
{{CURRENTWEEK}}	47	Week (number)
{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}}	20241124112207	ISO 8601 time stamp	1.7+

The following variables do the same as the above, but using the site's local timezone instead of user preferences and UTC:

• {{LOCALYEAR}}
• {{LOCALMONTH}}
• {{LOCALMONTHNAME}}
• {{LOCALMONTHNAMEGEN}}
• {{LOCALMONTHABBREV}}
• {{LOCALDAY}}
• {{LOCALDAY2}}
• {{LOCALDOW}}
• {{LOCALDAYNAME}}
• {{LOCALTIME}}
• {{LOCALHOUR}}
• {{LOCALWEEK}}
• {{LOCALTIMESTAMP}}

Technical metadata

Revision variables return data about the latest edit to the current page, even if viewing an older version of the page.

Variable	Output	Description	Versions
Site
{{SITENAME}}	BRL-CAD	The wiki's site name (Template:Mediawiki).
{{CURRENTVERSION}}	1.32.2	The wiki's MediaWiki version.	1.7+
{{CONTENTLANGUAGE}}	en	The wiki's default interface language (Template:Mediawiki)
Latest revision to current page
{{REVISIONID}}	331	Unique ID
{{REVISIONDAY}}	24	Day edit was made (unpadded number)
{{REVISIONDAY2}}	24	Day edit was made (zero-padded number)
{{REVISIONMONTH}}	04	Month edit was made (unpadded number)
{{REVISIONYEAR}}	2008	Year edit was made
{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}	20080424211511	Timestamp as of time of edit

Statistics

Numbers returned by these variables contain number separators, but can return raw numbers with the ":R" flag (for example, {{NUMBEROFPAGES}} = 1,847 and {{NUMBEROFPAGES:R}} = 1847). Use "|R" for magic words that require a parameter like PAGESINCATEGORY (for example {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Help}} and {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Help|R}}).

Variable	Output	Description	Versions
Entire wiki
{{NUMBEROFPAGES}}	1,847	Number of wiki pages.	1.7+
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}	311	Number of pages in main namespace.
{{NUMBEROFFILES}}	605	Number of uploaded files.	1.5+
{{NUMBEROFEDITS}}	12,776	Number of page edits.	1.10+
{{NUMBEROFUSERS}}	1,225	Number of registered users.	1.7+
{{NUMBEROFADMINS}}	10	Number of users in in the sysop group.	1.7+
Per namespace
{{PAGESINNS:2}}	Template:PAGESINNS:0	Number of pages in the given namespace (replace 2 with the relevant namespace ID). Disabled by default, enable with Template:Mediawiki.	1.7+
{{PAGESINNAMESPACE:2}}	Template:PAGESINNAMESPACE:2	Alias for {{PAGESINNS}}.	1.7+
Other
{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Help}}	36	Number of pages in the given category (replace "Help" with the relevant category name).	1.13+
{{PAGESINCAT:Help}}	36	Alias for {{PAGESINCATEGORY}}.	1.13+
{{PAGESIZE:Help:Magic_words}}	13,281	Returns the byte size of the specified page.	1.13+

URL data

URLs

Variable	Output	Description	Versions
{{SERVER}}	https://brlcad.org	domain URL (Template:Mediawiki)
{{SERVERNAME}}	brlcad.org	domain name (Template:Mediawiki)
{{SCRIPTPATH}}	/w	relative script path (Template:Mediawiki)
{{localurl:page name}} {{localurl:page name|query string}}	/wiki/Page_name /w/index.php?title=Page_name&query string	relative path to title
{{fullurl:page name}} {{fullurl:page name|query_string}}	https://brlcad.org/wiki/Page_name https://brlcad.org/w/index.php?title=Page_name&query_string	absolute path to title
{{filepath:file name}} {{filepath:file name|nowiki}}	https://brlcad.org/w/images/b/bc/Wiki.png	absolute path to image or media file (nowiki parameter currenty buggy)	r25854

Page names

Variable	Output	Description	Versions
{{FULLPAGENAME}}	Help:Magic words	Namespace and page title.
{{PAGENAME}}	Magic words	Page title.
{{BASEPAGENAME}}	Magic words	Page title excluding the current subpage and namespace ("Title" on "Title/foo").	1.7+
{{SUBPAGENAME}}	Magic words	The subpage title ("foo" on "Title/foo").	1.6+
{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}	Help:Magic words	The namespace and title of the associated content page.	1.7+
{{TALKPAGENAME}}	Help talk:Magic words	The namespace and title of the associated talk page.	1.7+

The following are URL-encoded equivalents:

• {{FULLPAGENAMEE}}
• {{PAGENAMEE}}
• {{BASEPAGENAMEE}}
• {{SUBPAGENAMEE}}
• {{SUBJECTPAGENAMEE}}
• {{TALKPAGENAMEE}}

Namespaces

Variable	Output	Description	Versions
{{NAMESPACE}}	Help	Namespace (name)
{{SUBJECTSPACE}}	Help	Name of the associated content namespace
{{TALKSPACE}}	Help talk	Name of the associated talk namespace

The following are URL-encoded equivalents:

• {{NAMESPACEE}}
• {{SUBJECTSPACEE}}
• {{TALKSPACEE}}

{{ns:}} returns the localized namespace name for that number of constant. The default values are:

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}}	BRL-CAD
{{ns:5}} or {{ns:Project_talk}}	BRL-CAD talk
{{ns:6}} or {{ns:Image}}	File
{{ns:7}} 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