Help:Colon function
A "colon function" is a predefined template with at least one unnamed parameter, separated from the function name by a colon ":" (unlike ordinary templates using "|"). Thus the syntax is:
- {{ function name : parameter value }}
The function name is not case-sensitive. Further parameters (if any, depending on the function) are separated by "|".
Contents
Formatting
LC
Makes a text lowercase.
{{lc:AbCdEf}}.
{{lc:Ä Β Ç}}, expected ä β ç.
UC
Makes a text uppercase.
{{uc:AbCdEf}}.
{{uc:ä β ß}}, expected: Ä Β SS. Don't expect too much.
LCFIRST
Makes the first character lowercase: {{lcfirst:Ab Cd}}.
UCFIRST
Makes the first character uppercase: {{ucfirst:aB cD}}.
URLENCODE
Converts the text into URL friendly format by replacing spaces with "+": {{urlencode:hello world}}
NS
Gives the namespace name for a given namespace number or name:
{{ns:4}} gives wiki.thepatternofeverything.org.
{{ns:{{ns:12}}_talk}} gives Help talk.
{{ns:project}} gives wiki.thepatternofeverything.org.
However {{ns:{{SITENAME}}}} for {{SITENAME}}=wiki.thepatternofeverything.org doesn't work, on Meta it has the same effect as {{Meta}}<code>, calling an existing Template:Meta.
NS:1
<code>{{ns:{{ns:0}}_talk}}. The canonical name for the talk namespace of articles is "talk" and not "_talk". But the following constructs work:
{{ns:01}} gives Talk,
{{ns:+1}} gives Talk,
{{ns:TALK}} gives Talk, and
{{ns:{{ns:1}}}} gives also Talk. Space sensitive, but not case sensitive.
NS:0
'''#{{ns:0}}#''', an empty string. This is often handy, less vulnerable than a template void or similar,
and less cryptic than magic words like __END__.
In constructs like {{ {{#if: {{{T|}}} | {{{T}}} | ns:0}} }}, where parameter T is
normally the name of a template to be evaluated, but can be undefined or empty, {{ns:0}}
is then a clean empty string. Without it {{}} would result in {{}}.
Please note that {{ns:{{ns:0}}}}. NS cannot handle an empty {{ns:0}} argument.
{{ns:0}}
An empty section title like above is obtained using, in this case, ==== {{ns:0}} ====. This is dubious, but arguably better than using the same trick to get invisble section headers twice on a page. At least /* {{ns:0}} */ makes sense in the edit history, if there's only one section using this particular trick.
As shown in the table of contents this and similar tricks result in non-functional links. In conjunction with __NOTOC__ it's less harmful, and maybe useful to get edit links for invisible sections with categories and interlanguage links. Other possibilities for different invisible section headers:
-
=== __NOTOC__ === -
=== === -
=== === -
===   ===
#language:
{{#language: code}} gives the language name of selected RFC 3066 language codes, otherwise it returns the input value as is. For a complete list see the IANA registry.
Substitution
- See also: Help:Substitution.
Applying "subst:" to a colon function works:
{{subst:LC:AbC}} gives abc.
Note that unless a technique like optional recursive substitution is used, substituting a template which uses a colon function does not replace that colon function with its result.
