Extension talk:Variables

From MediaWiki.org

Hello there,

this is a very useful extension but it do not work the way i expected. This variables seem to be not actual when a page is reloaded. I changed the return value of the variable but it has the old value (after reloading the page). When i worte "Hello {{CURRENTUSER}}" on my main page an i logged out, it always shows my former login name. I thougt that this could be a caching problem, but when a fried edited the main page and I visited it afterwards, the page shows the login name of my friedn.... There is something strange about parsing the CURRENTXYZ values. Is there a solution?

Thanks in advance 88.76.203.237--

Yeah I've noticed that as well, I think it's that the current user variable reset after logging out after the page renders, but I'll check it out properly when I get some time. --Nad 22:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Nad,

i tried different ways but it is really strange and does not work. My php skills are not that good (as same as my english skills :-) ), but i ask myself how the whole session is handled. When i am logged in everything (for example MY watchlist) is rendered depending on my login name. So i think there must be a reliable information about the user which is currently logged in. (Or how does all this customized rendering work?). Naive as i am, i expected $wgUser stores this information, but obviously it does not. Greetings from Germany. ---~~

I've recently found that this extension doesn't work in 1.9.x - it works in 1.4 - 1.6.x. I'm working a lot on some 1.9's now and will need to get it going for that so I'll update it here when I get it working. --Nad 21:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Nad,

i hope i do not bother you. I forgot to mention, that "our wiki" is running a 1.6.9 version. I am now really suprised that you do not notice this problems in a 1.6.x version. I am running two 1.6.9 wiki on different target systems (Windows XP / PHP 5 AND Linux PHP 4) and in both i noticed this problem. I am trying to get throug the source codes but as i mentioned my skill are not that good.

I believe that the parsing of the wiki code does not work correctly. For testing purposes i customized your code to render

$user=new User();

$user->getName();

but this does also have the same "side effects". Sometimes i think this code is not really rendered each time. Then i edit the site and click on "preview" i ALWAYS get the correct value of the variable.

But this seems to be not only "your problem" the standard values like NUMBEROFARTICLES act the same (strange) way.

I hope my information are helping you anyway. Have a nice day. --193.19.114.132

All I can think of is that maybe the pages you're viewing are cached, it's always good to turn off the caching when experimenting with the following couple if lines in LocalSettings.php,

$wgEnableParserCache = false;

$wgOut->enableClientCache(false);

The $wgUser global is definately the object you want which holds the info on the currently logged in user. --Nad 20:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello Nad, thank you very much for your competent help. I disabled the Cache in LocalSettings.php (only the $wgEnableParserCache=false) and everything works as i expected. Thanks a lot for your support!! Have a nice weekend! Greetings from Germany. --193.19.114.132

Excellent, glad to hear it's working out ;-) --Nad 21:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Parser Caching?

Hello,

in 1.8.4, variables retain their values after having been computed once. Touching LocalSettings.php helps, so I'm pretty shure there must be some caching problem.

Workaround

set $wgEnableParserCache to false in LocalSettings.php

Solution

Sorry, Nad, I'm new to MediaWiki and as well to php. There must be some solution to prevent pages that contain dynamic variables from being cached. Perhaps setting some per-page flag... I don't know.

[edit] Harm in disabling?

I want to put a cool icon and edit instruction on the unedited personal page (#if on Media Wiki:Noarticletext), but then the CURRENTUSER variable has to be functional.

What will be damaged if I set $wgEnableParserCache to false? I guess at least it would make the count of the number of times each page has been displayed to go crazy... any other damages? Maybe performance? Thank you :-) --87.68.208.47 22:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Completely disabling the parser cache will affect performance badly, especially if you have any high traffic to serve. I've added a line in to the CURRENTUSER example which marks the returned content as uncacheable, so see if that does the trick --Nad 23:38, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Examples?

I'm trying to create new variables with this extension that call user stats like registration date and last login of a user. It's for a template so the user is called with Variables. Any hints? Thanks. --Subfader 21:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It would probably be easier to make it as a parser function such as #user and make the parameter the property you want to read, that way you can easily extend the number of properties etc without having to create many different magic words. --Nad 23:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not working for me (MW1.12.0)

Hi - I've tried this using the include in LocalSettings.php, but I just get a few lines of programming superimposed at the top of the wiki page, and the variable doesn't work. Should it work in 1.12.0? Thanks. - Derrickfarnell 11:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

MW 1.12.0 may not work due to the significant changes to the way the parser works. --Zven 20:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

WOrked fine for me on 1.12.0rc. Try placing the line above all other extension includes / requires --Subfader 06:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong: I created a folder, within the extension folder, called 'MyVariables', and then created a php file within that folder with the name MyVariables.php, and containing simply the code provided here. I then added the following line at the end of LocalSettings.php, although before all the other lines I've added at the end in the past:

require_once( "$IP/extensions/MyVariables/MyVariables.php" );

Should that work?! It still doesn't for me... I just get a few lines of code superimposed at the top of every page, which is what has happened in the past when other extensions have not worked or been incorrectly installed.

Is there perhaps another way of automatically inserting the user's username into a page? I'm wanting the user's username to be automatically inserted in the form field on this page:

http://www.chainsofreason.org/wiki/Create_a_new_chain

- I can get the date and time automatically inserted, but the user has to manually replace 'User' with their username. Derrickfarnell 09:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Now working after adding <?php to the beginning of the code. - Derrickfarnell 09:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More variables

The extension works very well (MediaWiki: 1.10.1; PHP: 5.1.2). If there is a second Wiki installed as a shared repository for media files, the users might need information about the available disc space. Therefore I added two variables:

                case MAG_DISCTOTALSPACE:
                        $ret = disk_total_space ( $GLOBALS['wgSharedUploadDirectory'] );
                        break;
 
                case MAG_DISCFREESPACE:
                        $ret = diskfreespace ( $GLOBALS['wgSharedUploadDirectory'] );
                        break;

The functions disk_total_space and diskfreespace use $wgSharedUploadDirectory to get the path information. The variables can be processed using ParserFunctions to get the required output for users on a wiki page. --ThT 14:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Give out javascript

Is it possible to give out a simple javascript this way? Something like $ret = echo ('<a href="javascript:...>Text</a>? --Subfader 19:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Give it a try, if not you can set up a parser-function instead which can be made to return HTML --Nad 21:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Database query?

Is it possible to give out a database query? I'd like to use a code to display 3 random mp3 links from Special:MIMESearch/audio/mp3 on an article page. --Subfader 23:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You'd have to look at the code they use in that special page to query those types and modify it to produce a random selection, and then include that code in a magic variable or parser function. --Nad 20:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)