Help talk:Magic words

Forcing evaluation of the Magic Words.

Is there any way that I can add {{CURRENTYEAR}} to the text of a page and have the actual text stored being the evaluation of the magic word, so 2024 ends up in the text.Naraht (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

@Naraht: Yes: {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} yields 2024. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:25, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Parser function" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Wikipedia:Parser function has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 18 § Wikipedia:Parser function until a consensus is reached. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 03:37, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Function for number of links on a page

Is there a function for showing the number of unique mainspace links on a page? I know I can use PetScan to produce a list of these, but for WikiProject statistics purposes, I would like to show the total number of them for a page with {{Database report}} having article links as output. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 23:02, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

To follow up, I recently fleshed this idea out more in a wish I created for the Community Wishlist on Meta. Stefen 𝕋ower_{'s got the power!!1!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 08:10, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Table content breaks with {{!}}

The description for {{!}} says "Used to include a pipe character as part of a template argument or table cell contents.". I've come across this explanation elsewhere too, even on MediaWiki. It doesn't work in cell or caption content anymore where the software can misinterpret it as an attribute separator and removes content before it. Its only use seems like a temporary escape of parameter parsing for templates. Incorrect usage needs to be fixed too. Instead, use <nowiki>|</nowiki> or |.

{{=}} has a similar intended purpose and should have its "table cell contents" usage revised too. A literal equals sign (=) works for visual text. Jroberson108 (talk) 01:59, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Looked more into the parsing order:

1. Expands templates
2. Expands variables and parser functions
3. ...
4. Renders wikitext for tables

It is expanded to a pipe before the table parser. To clarify, the issue occurs in a caption or cell without an attribute.

), no attribute

pipe (|), attribute

), no attribute

Jroberson108 (talk) 10:11, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Description for both has been updated. Jroberson108 (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2026 (UTC)