Help:Magic Words

Magic words are strings of codes which associates with a return value or function, such as time, site details, or page names. This page is about usage of standard magic words.

Basically there are three types of magic words:

• Behavior Switches. These are uppercase words surrounded by double underscores (eg __FOO__)
• Variables. These are uppercase words surrounded by double braces (eg {{FOO}}).
• Parametric or Parser Functions. These take parameters and are either of the form {{foo:...}} or {{#foo:...}}.

Behaviour Switches

A behaviour switch controls the layout or behaviour of the page and can often be used to specify desired omissions and inclusions in the content.

Word	Description
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 beside the "edit" tab for adding a new section on a non-talk page.
__NONEWSECTIONLINK__	Removes the link beside the "edit" tab on pages in talk namespaces.
Categories
__NOGALLERY__	Used on a category page, replaces thumbnails in the category view with normal links.
__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).
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
__START__	No effect.
__END__	Explicitly marks the end of the article, to prevent MediaWiki from removing trailing whitespace.
__INDEX__	Tell search engines to index the page.
__NOINDEX__	Tell search engines not to index the page (ie, do not list in search engines' results).
__STATICREDIRECT__	On redirect pages, don't allow wiki to automatically update the link when someone moves a page and checks "Update any redirects that point to the original title".

Variables

Variables return information about the current page, wiki, or date. Their syntax is similar to templates. If a template name conflicts with a variable, the variable will be used (so to transclude the template Template:PAGENAME you would need to write {{Template:PAGENAME}}). In some cases, adding parameters will force the parser to treat a variable as a template; for example, {{CURRENTDAYNAME|x}} transcludes Template:CURRENTDAYNAME.

Date & time

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

Variable	Output	Description
Year
{{CURRENTYEAR}}	2024	Year
Month
{{CURRENTMONTH}}	11	Month (zero-padded number)
{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}	November	Month (name)
{{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}	November	Month
{{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}	Nov	Month (abbreviation)
Day
{{CURRENTDAY}}	24	Day of the month (unpadded number)
{{CURRENTDAY2}}	24	Day of the month (zero-padded number)
{{CURRENTDOW}}	0	Day of the week (unpadded number)
{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}	Sunday	Day of the week (name)
Time
{{CURRENTTIME}}	14:16	Time (24-hour HH:mm format)
{{CURRENTHOUR}}	14	Hour (24-hour zero-padded number)
Other
{{CURRENTWEEK}}	47	Week (number)
{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}}	20241124141623	YYYYMMDDHHmmss timestamp

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
Site
{{SITENAME}}	Iskomunidad	The wiki's site name
{{SERVER}}	https://iskomunidad.upd.edu.ph	domain URL
{{SERVERNAME}}	iskomunidad.upd.edu.ph	domain name
{{DIRMARK}} {{DIRECTIONMARK}}	‎ ‎	Outputs a unicode-directional mark that matches the wiki's default language's direction (‎ on left-to-right wikis, ‏ on right-to-left wikis), useful in text with multi-directional text.
{{SCRIPTPATH}}		relative script path
{{CURRENTVERSION}}	1.42.3	The wiki's MediaWiki version.
{{CONTENTLANGUAGE}}	en	The wiki's default interface language
Latest revision to current page
{{REVISIONID}}	2759	Unique ID
{{REVISIONDAY}}	4	Day edit was made (unpadded number)
{{REVISIONDAY2}}	04	Day edit was made (zero-padded number)
{{REVISIONMONTH}}	03	Month edit was made (unpadded number)
{{REVISIONYEAR}}	2009	Year edit was made
{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}	20090304203209	Timestamp as of time of edit
{{PAGESIZE:page name}}	0	Returns the byte size of the specified page.
{{PROTECTIONLEVEL:action}}	protection level	Outputs the protection level (e.g. 'autoconfirm', 'sysop') for a given action (e.g. 'edit', 'move') on the current page or an empty string if not protected.
Affects page content
{{DISPLAYTITLE:title}}		Format the current page's title header. The value must be equivalent to the default title: only capitalization changes and replacing spaces with underscores.
{{DEFAULTSORT:sortkey}}		Used on a categorized page, sets a default.

Statistics

Numbers returned by these variables normally contain separators (commas or spaces, depending on the local language), but can return raw numbers with the ":R" flag (for example, {{NUMBEROFPAGES}} → 22,801 and {{NUMBEROFPAGES:R}} → 22801). Use "|R" for magic words that require a parameter like PAGESINCATEGORY (for example {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Help}} and {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Help|R}}).

Variable	Output	Description
Entire wiki
{{NUMBEROFPAGES}}	22,801	Number of wiki pages.
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}	3,711	Number of pages in main namespace.
{{NUMBEROFFILES}}	14,954	Number of uploaded files.
{{NUMBEROFEDITS}}	70,451	Number of page edits.
{{NUMBEROFUSERS}}	5,925	Number of registered users.
{{NUMBEROFADMINS}}	12	Number of users in the sysop.
{{PAGESINCATEGORY:categoryname}} {{PAGESINCAT:Help}}	1 1	Number of pages in the given category (replace "Help" with the relevant category name).
{{PAGESINNS:index}} {{PAGESINNAMESPACE:index}}	not enabled	Number of pages in the given namespace (replace 2 with the relevant namespace index). E.g. {{PAGESINNAMESPACE:14}} equals the number of categories..

Page names

Variable	Output	Description
{{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").
{{SUBPAGENAME}}	Magic Words	The subpage title ("foo" on "Title/foo").
{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}	Help:Magic Words	The namespace and title of the associated content page.
{{TALKPAGENAME}}	Help talk:Magic Words	The namespace and title of the associated talk page.

The following are URL-encoded equivalents:

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

Namespaces

Variable	Output	Description
{{NAMESPACE}}	Help	Namespace (name)
{{SUBJECTSPACE}} {{ARTICLESPACE}}	Help 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}}

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 usually prefixed with a hash to distingush them from possible templates)

URL data

Variable	Output	Description
{{localurl:page name}} {{localurl:page name|query string}}	/index.php?title=Page_name /index.php?title=Page_name&query string	The relative path to the title.
{{fullurl:page name}} {{fullurl:page name|query_string}} {{fullurl:interwiki:remote page name|query_string}}	https://iskomunidad.upd.edu.ph/index.php?title=Page_name https://iskomunidad.upd.edu.ph/index.php?title=Page_name&query_string	The absolute path to the title. This will also resolve prefixes.
{{filepath:file name}} {{filepath:file name|nowiki}}		The absolute URL to a media file.
{{urlencode:string}}	x+y+z	The input encoded for use in URLs.
{{anchorencode:string}}	x_y_z	The input encoded for use in URL section anchors (after the '#' symbol in a URL).

Namespaces

{{ns:}} returns the localized name for the namespace with that index.

	Usage	Output	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}}	Iskomunidad	{{ns:5}} or {{ns:Project_talk}}	Iskomunidad talk
{{ns:6}} or {{ns:File}} or {{ns:Image}}	File	{{ns:7}} or {{ns:File_talk}} 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

Formatting

Usage	Output	Description
{{lc:string}}	text transform	The lowercase input.
{{lcfirst:string}}	teXt tRaNsFoRm	The input with the first character lowercase.
{{uc:string}}	TEXT TRANSFORM	The uppercase input.
{{ucfirst:string}}	TeXt tRaNsFoRm	The input with the first character uppercase.
{{formatnum:unformatted number}} {{formatnum:formatted number|R}}	−987,654,321.654321 -987654321.654321	The input with decimal and decimal group separators, and localized digit script, according to the wiki's default locale. the |R parameter can be used to unformat a number, for use in mathmatical situations.
{{padleft:xyz|number}} {{padleft:xyz|number|separator}}	00xyz __xyz	Inserts a string of padding characters (character chosen in third parameter; default '0') of a specified length (second paramater) next to a chosen base character or variable (first parameter). The final digits or characters in the base replace the final characters in the padding; ie. {{padleft:44|3|0}} produces 044.
{{padright:xyz|number}} {{padright:xyz|number|separator}}	xyz00 xyz__	Identical to padleft, but adds padding characters to the right side.
{{plural:2|is|are}}	are	Outputs the correct given pluralization form (parameters except first) depending on the count (first parameter). Plural transformations are used for languages like Russian based on "count mod 10".
{{grammar:N|noun}}	noun	Outputs the correct inflected form of the given word described by the inflection code after the colon (language-dependent). Grammar transformations are used for inflected languages like Polish.

Miscellaneous

Usage	Output	Description	Version
{{int:message name}} {{int:edit}}	Edit (depends on user language, try: fr •ja)	Internationalizes (translates) the given interface (namespace) message into the user language.
{{#language:language code}} {{#language:ar}} {{#language:th}}	language code العربية ไทย	The native name for the given language code.
{{#special:special page name}} {{#special:Special:UserLogin}}	Special:Special page name Special:UserLogin	The localized name for the given canonical Special: page.
{{#tag:tagname}} {{#tag:tagname |tag content |parameter=value |parameter2=value }}	(depends on parser tag)	Alias for XML-style parser or extension tags, but parsing wiki code. Attribute values can be passed as parameter values ('<tagname attribute="value">' → '{{#tag:tagname|attribute=value}}'), and inner content as an unnamed parameter ('<tagname>content</tagname>' → '{{#tag:tagname|content}}').
{{GENDER:username |return text if user is male |return text if user is female |return text if user hasn't defined their gender}}	(depends on the named user's gender)	A switch for the gender set in Special:Preferences