Help talk:Magic words

__NEWSECTIONLINK__ or alternative in 1.6.10?
is there any alternative to __NEWSECTIONLINK__ or in 1.6.10?

Q/ doesn't work on my wiki. You'v got any idea ?
 * A/ Needs MW 1.14++

TOC - hide contents
is there a possibility to hide the content at starting up the page? i saw that it is made with a nice little java script.

Full list?
I'm sure I saw something like __no-rich-editor__ around this website.

Magic Word to reference Section Header Name
Is there any possibility to get the header name of the section - like as you can show the article name with  ? I am pretty sure I would have stumbled upon it if it was as easy as just using a magic word for it, but I could not even find an extension that provides it. I can't believe noone was in need for this before... Can anyone point me to something? Thanks a lot --Achimbode 16:04, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Is magic variable expansion an atomic operation?
I cannot find it mentioned anywhere, hence the question: Is the expansion of mediawiki magic variables an atomic operation for the whole page? If so, is this "by accident/side-effect", or is MediaWiki deliberately coded to guarantee this under all circumstances (that is, also, if no caching is used)? I wonder, if the contents of variables could change during the time it takes to process a page.

To illustrate this, assume it would take some while to process a huge page containing a at the beginning and the end of the page. Will both magic variables be expanded to the same value, even if the second rolls over in the meantime?

The background to the question is the observation, that various Wikipedia templates use the 2024, August , 28 , and similar MediaWiki variables to compose more complex date representations for a multitude of purposes. Example for a template to display the ISO 8601 date:

2024-August-

Now, if MediaWiki would not guarantee that all these variables do not change while the template is being processed, such a template would produce faulty output if executed in the very moment, when the month rolls over. In this moment, it could still output the old month (and year), but the new date. Example: If 2011-11-30 rolls over to 2011-12-01, the template might emit 2011-11-01 instead. If 2011-12-31 rolls over to 2012-01-01, the template might emit 2011-12-01 or 2011-01-01 instead.

It would be possible to create the same ISO 8601 output by processing the contents of the variable instead, however, this is more complicated to code, and most of the existing templates to do take this route. So, do all these templates just work "by accident" (since the rollover is a relatively rare event) or does the MediaWiki variable expansion takes care of this by design? Thanks. --88.77.205.254 18:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * All of them are replaced with the same timestamp, provided by ParserOptions::getTimestamp, so there won't be such rollover effect. Platonides 18:50, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the quick answer. --84.63.108.166 19:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

nowiki parameter in filepath
What is nowiki parameter in supposed to do? Given examples don't show any difference: Gustronico 15:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * They look the same because of the configuration used on Wikimedia sites. These examples should make it more clear what the nowiki parameter does:
 * → http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/mediawiki/b/bc/Wiki.png
 * → http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/mediawiki/b/bc/Wiki.png
 * As you can see, nowiki prevents the automatic linking of the returned URL. But on Wikimedia filepath returns a protocol-relative URL, which are not automatically linked anyway. Thus, the result is the same. Reach Out to the Truth 19:38, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you. There is no info about this parameter in the help page. I think it should be named nolink instead. Gustronico 19:59, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Automatic url linking is not a wiki markup related feature, but a general web practice instead, so "nowiki" make no sense here. It should be better named "nolink". Gustronico 16:23, 19 November 2011 (UTC)