Help:Variables

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

Most variables (except for pseudo variables below) are types of "magic words". See magic words at MediaWiki for a complete list.


Date and time

The following variables return the current date and time in UTC.

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

Variable Output Description
{{CURRENTYEAR}} 2024 Year
{{CURRENTMONTH}} 10 Month (zero-padded number)
{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} October Month (name
{{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}} October Month (genitive form)
{{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}} Oct Month (abbreviation)
{{CURRENTDAY}} 9 Day of the month (unpadded number)
{{CURRENTDAY2}} 09 Day of the month (zero-padded number)
{{CURRENTDOW}} 3 Day of the week (unpadded number)
{{CURRENTDAYNAME}} Wednesday Day of the week (name)
{{CURRENTTIME}} 00:45 Time (24-hour HH:mm format)
{{CURRENTHOUR}} 00 Hour (24-hour zero-padded number)
{{CURRENTWEEK}} 41 Week (number)
{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} 20241009004505 YYYYMMDDHHmmss timestamp

Technical metadata

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

Site

Variable Output Description
{{SITENAME}} Wikibooks The wiki's site name
{{SERVER}} //en.wikibooks.org domain URL
{{SERVERNAME}} en.wikibooks.org domain name
{{SCRIPTPATH}} /w relative script path
{{STYLEPATH}} /w/skins relative style path
{{CURRENTVERSION}} 1.43.0-wmf.25 (92895a7) The wiki's MediaWiki version.
{{CONTENTLANGUAGE}}
{{CONTENTLANG}}
en
en
The wiki's default interface language

Latest revision to current page

Variable Output Description
{{REVISIONID}} - Unique revision ID
{{REVISIONDAY}} 1 Day edit was made (unpadded number)
{{REVISIONDAY2}} 01 Day edit was made (zero-padded number)
{{REVISIONMONTH}} 12 Month edit was made (zero-padded number)
{{REVISIONYEAR}} 2022 Year edit was made
{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} 20221201134647 Timestamp as of time of edit
{{REVISIONUSER}} Xeverything11 The username of the user who made the most recent edit to the page, or the current user when previewing an edit

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}} → 290,889 and {{NUMBEROFPAGES:R}} → 290889). Use "|R" for magic words that require a parameter like PAGESINCATEGORY (for example {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Help}} and {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Help|R}}).

Variable Output Description
{{NUMBEROFPAGES}} 290,889 Number of wiki pages.
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} 97,575 Number of pages in content namespaces.
{{NUMBEROFFILES}} 2,689 Number of uploaded files.
{{NUMBEROFEDITS}} 4,292,309 Number of page edits.
{{NUMBEROFUSERS}} 3,476,656 Number of registered users.
{{NUMBEROFADMINS}} 10 Number of users in the administrator group.
{{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}} 281 Number of active users, based on the criteria used in Special:Statistics.
{{NUMBERINGROUP:groupname}}
{{NUMINGROUP:groupname}}
0
0
({{NUMBERINGROUP:bureaucrat}} used here)
Number of users in a specific group.

Namespaces

Variable Output Description
{{NAMESPACE}} Help Name of the page's namespace
{{SUBJECTSPACE}}
{{ARTICLESPACE}}
Help
Help
Name of the associated content namespace
{{TALKSPACE}} Help talk Name of the associated talk namespace

The following are equivalents encoded for use in URLs (spaces replaced with underscores and some characters percent-encoded):

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

These can take a page name and will return the namespace of the page name parameter, instead of the current page's:

  • {{NAMESPACE:Template:Main Page}}Template
  • {{SUBJECTSPACE:Template:Main Page}}Template
  • {{TALKSPACE:Template:Main Page}}Template talk

Page names

Variable Output Description
{{FULLPAGENAME}} Help:Variables Namespace and page title.
{{PAGENAME}} Variables Page title, excluding namespace.
{{BASEPAGENAME}} Variables Page title excluding the current subpage and namespace ("Title/foo" on "Title/foo/bar").
{{SUBPAGENAME}} Variables The subpage title ("foo" on "Title/foo").
{{ROOTPAGENAME}} Variables Title of the topmost parent, excluding namespace and anything after the first slash ("Title" on "Wikijunior:Title/foo/bar").
{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}} Help:Variables The namespace and title of the associated content page.
{{TALKPAGENAME}} Help talk:Variables The namespace and title of the associated talk page.

The following are equivalents encoded for use in MediaWiki URLs (i.e. spaces replaced with underscores and some characters percent-encoded):

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

These can all allow specification of the page to be operated on, instead of just the current page:

  • {{PAGENAME:Template:Main Page}}Main Page

Pseudo variables

Some templates have been created that mimic the above variables. While the variables in the above section use a colon (:) to specify a page for output if desired, these will use a pipe (|) for inputting a page. For example, {{BOOKNAME|Wikijunior:Bugs}} can be used to get Wikijunior:Bugs.

Template Description
{{NUMBEROFBOOKS}} Returns the number of books at Wikibooks.
{{BOOKTEMPLATE}} Returns the name of a template with the same name as the book it's used in.
{{BOOKNAME}} Returns the name of the book associated with the page on which it's used.
{{NAIVEBOOKNAME}} Returns the namespace and rootpagename of the page.
{{BOOKTALKNAME}} Returns the associated discussion page for a book as a whole.
{{CHAPTERNAME}} Returns the chapter that a page is in and ignores anything beyond that.
{{BOOKPAGENAME}} Returns all of a page name except the name of the book.
{{BOOKSORTKEY}} Returns all of a subpage name except the name of the book, or the book name if the page isn't a subpage.

For the latter templates, it's easier to see the difference between them by viewing a side-by-side comparison of their outputs.

Input Pages and Outputs
Template Chess/Puzzles/Directmates Wikijunior:Dinosaurs/Apatosaurus Category:Book:Horticulture/Templates/Boxes Wikijunior talk:Bugs/Shield Bug
{{BOOKNAME}} Chess Wikijunior:Dinosaurs Horticulture Wikijunior:Bugs
{{NAIVEBOOKNAME}} Chess Wikijunior:Dinosaurs Category:Book:Horticulture Wikijunior talk:Bugs
{{BOOKTALKNAME}} Talk:Chess Wikijunior talk:Dinosaurs Talk:Horticulture Wikijunior talk:Bugs
{{CHAPTERNAME}} Puzzles Apatosaurus Templates Shield Bug
{{BOOKPAGENAME}} Puzzles/Directmates Apatosaurus Templates/Boxes Shield Bug
{{BOOKSORTKEY}} Puzzles/Directmates Apatosaurus Templates/Boxes Shield Bug