Extension:Cite

Starting with MediaWiki 1.25 the "Special:Cite" extension that used to be documented on this page too is no longer part of the "Cite" extension. When upgrading from MediaWiki 1.24 the following line will have to be removed from your "LocalSettings.php" file: The "Special:Cite" extension is now know as the CiteThisPage extension and may be installed separately.

The Cite extension allows a user to create references as footnotes on a page. It adds two parser hooks to MediaWiki,  and  ; these operate together to add citations to pages.

Usage
The basic concept of the &lt;ref> tag is that it inserts the text enclosed by the ref tags as a footnote in a designated section, which you indicate with the placeholder tag &lt;references />. This format cannot be used interchangeably with the older format — you must pick one or the other.

If you forget to include &lt;references /> in the article, the footnotes will not appear, but a red error message will be displayed at the end of the page.

This page itself uses footnotes, such as the one at the end of this sentence. If you [ view the source] of this page by clicking "Edit this page", you can see a working example of footnotes.



The Sun is pretty big. &lt;ref>E. Miller, The Sun, (New York: Academic Press, 2005), 23-5.&lt;/ref> The Moon, however, is not so big. &lt;ref>R. Smith, "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 46 (April 1978): 44-6.&lt;/ref>

&#61;=Notes==

'''&lt;references /> 

Multiple uses of the same footnote
To give a footnote a unique identifier, use &lt;ref name="name">. You can then refer to the same footnote again by using a ref tag with the same name. The text inside the second tag doesn't matter, because the text already exists in the first reference. You can either copy the whole footnote, or you can use a terminated empty ref tag that looks like this: &lt;ref name="name" />. The quotes are not required (but still correct) if the name contains no embedded spaces. The space before the closing "/" may be omitted.

In the following example, the same source is cited three times.

 This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote. &lt;ref name&#61;"multiple">Remember that when you refer to the same footnote multiple times, the text from the first reference is used.&lt;/ref>

Such references are particularly useful when citing sources, if different statements come from the same source. &lt;ref name&#61;"multiple">This text is superfluous, and won't show up anywhere. We may as well just use an empty tag.&lt;/ref>

A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end. Although this may reduce redundant work, please be aware that if a future editor removes the first reference, this will result in the loss of all references using the empty ref tags. &lt;ref name&#61;"multiple" />

&#61;=Notes==

&lt;references /> 

The text above gives the following result in the article (see also section below):

This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.

Such references are particularly useful when citing sources, when different statements come from the same source.

A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end. Although this may reduce redundant work, please be aware that if a future editor removes the first reference, this will result in the loss of all references using the empty ref tags.

identifiers require alphabetic characters; solely relying on numerals will generate an error message.

Merging two texts into a single reference
A typical wikisource issue is, how to merge into one reference texts split into different pages. This can be done using a &lt;ref name="name"> tag for the first part of the reference, and tagging the following parts into different pages with a tag &lt;ref follow="name">.

Here an example, deriving the text used into previous section:

Result:

This is an example of merging multiple texts into the same footnote.

When using this syntax into Page: namespace, take care that the ref follow part of the footnote is transcluded too into the same ns0 page, where the first part of footnote is transcluded. Use appropriately section tags to get this result. To also remind users that reference names should not solely be numbers, eg. and.

&lt;references /&gt;
Placing  inserts the full text of all pending inline citations defined by , anywhere on the page. For example, based on the citations above, the code:



… will yield:

, which incorporates. It provides an optional parameter to display the reference list in multiple columns. For instance, the English, Hindi and Interlingua Wikipedias use the css selector  to make the reference text smaller than normal text.

In the case of multiple references-tags on a page, each gives the references defined in the ref-tags from the previous references-tag. In the case that these references-tags are produced by templates, each gives the references defined in the ref-tags before the first references-tag, and there is an error message that there is a ref-tag but not a references-tag.

Grouped references
This may be disabled by  if desired. However, it is enabled on the Foundation wikis.

The following example generates separate reference lists for citations and miscellaneous footnotes:

 According to scientists, the Sun is pretty big &lt;ref>E. Miller, The Sun, (New York: Academic Press, 2005), 23-5.&lt;/ref>.

In fact, it is very big &lt;ref group="footnotes">Take their word for it. Don't look directly at the sun!&lt;/ref>.

&#61;=Notes==

'''&lt;references group="footnotes" />

&#61;=References==

'''&lt;references /> 

The anonymous group works as before, while the named group reference will show up as, and the references will look like this: section, to the place where they will actually appear to the reader. Thus,

 According to scientists, the Sun is pretty big. &lt;ref name="miller" />

The Moon, however, is not so big. &lt;ref name="smith" />

&#61;=Notes==

&lt;references>

&lt;ref name="miller">E. Miller, The Sun, (New York: Academic Press, 2005), 23-5.&lt;/ref> &lt;ref name="smith">R. Smith, "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 46 (April 1978): 44-6.&lt;/ref>

&lt;/references> 

will have the same output as the first example above, although the numbering and order of the references will not in general be the same.

Substitution and embedded parser functions
Since  is parsed before substitution (i.e.,  ) or parser functions, e.g.,  &hellip;, those will not work inside of citation references. Instead, you have to use the magic word &hellip;.
 * This non-working example:


 * could be made to work using:

At this time, there is no way to create an "empty" tag, i.e.,, without triggering Cite's complaint about empty content. The workaround is to simply redefine the full tag each time you use this feature. Since such usage is likely limited to templates or other semi-automated process, this may not be too onerous. Bookmarklet example for Cite web:



Customization
The format of the output of  and   is almost completely customizable through MediaWiki messages, that can be modified, for example, through the MediaWiki namespace depending on the configuration of the wiki.

For a list of messages that control the output of  and   and the values, if any, that are passed to them ($1, $2, $3 ...), see the code in CVS for an up-to-date listing of their default contents.

Source: Wikipedia's MediaWiki:Common.css
 * cite_reference_link_key_with_num
 * key
 * num
 * cite_reference_link_prefix
 * cite_reference_link_suffix
 * cite_references_link_prefix
 * cite_references_link_suffix
 * cite_reference_link
 * ref ID
 * backlink ID
 * count to display
 * cite_references_link_one
 * Used to format the source list that