Template:Refn

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Purpose

This template is used to create footnotes in Wikipedia, as an alternative and complement to the <ref>. Because of a technical limitation, some of the standard Wikipedia markup elements that are often used in the article prose do not work within a set of <ref>...</ref> tags, including but not limited to the pipe trick, template substitution and another "nested" set of <ref>...</ref> tags. For example, the following does not work as expected:

  1. <ref>[[Help:Footnotes|]]</ref> (Generates: [[Help:Footnotes|]] instead of a wikilink)
  2. <ref>{{SUBST:TODAY}}</ref> (Generates: {{SUBST:TODAY}} instead of the date that the edit was made)
  3. <ref>Explanatory footnote<ref>Citation</ref></ref> (Generates: Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). </ref>)

Replacing the outermost <ref>...</ref> set with {{Refn}} allows for the use of the markup elements listed above.

Usage

{{refn|group=groupname|name=name|Contents of the footnote}}

  • groupname: Groupname per WP:REFGROUP; if not specified, then the main and nested references will be rendered into the same reference list
  • name: Reference name per WP:REFNAME

Names for footnotes and groups must follow these rules:

  • Names are case-sensitive.
  • Names must not be purely numeric; they should have semantic value so that they can be more easily distinguished from each other by human editors.
  • Names must be unique—you may not use the same name to define different groups or footnotes.
  • Please consider keeping reference names simple and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals. Failing that, including if spaces are used, the following technical restrictions become relevant:
    • Quotation marks are optional if the only characters used are letters A–Z, a–z, digits 0–9, and the symbols !$%&()*,-.:;<@[]^_`{|}~. That is, all printable ASCII characters except #"'/=>?\.
    • Inclusion of any other characters, including spaces, requires that the reference name be enclosed in quotes; for example, name="John Smith".
    • The quote marks must be the standard straight keyboard marks ("); curly or other quotes will be parsed as part of the reference name.
    • Quote-enclosed reference names may not include a less-than sign (<) or a double straight quote symbol ("). These may be escaped with &lt; and &quot;, respectively.
  • You may optionally provide reference names even when the reference name is not required. This makes later re-use of the sourced reference easier.

Examples

Footnotes with citations

Markup Renders as
An example.{{refn|group=note|name=first|A note.<ref>An included reference.</ref>}}
Another example.{{refn|group=note|Another note.<ref>Another included reference.</ref>}}
A third example.{{refn|group=note|The third note.<ref>The reference in the third note.</ref>}}
Repeating the first example.{{refn|group=note|name=first}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

An example.[note 1] Another example.[note 2] A third example.[note 3] Repeating the first example.[note 1]

Notes
  1. 1.0 1.1 A note.[1]
  2. Another note.[2]
  3. The third note.[3]
References
  1. An included reference.
  2. Another included reference.
  3. The reference in the third note.

Substitution

The first example shows that substitution does not work in a regular <ref>...</ref> tag (the |access-date= does not appear correctly). The second example shows that the |access-date= is substituted correctly within {{refn}}.

Markup Renders as
<ref>{{cite web |access-date={{Subst:TODAY}} |title=Languages |work=Apache HTTP Server |agency=Ohloh |publisher= Black Duck Software |url=https://www.ohloh.net/p/apache/analyses/latest/languages_summary}}</ref>
{{reflist}}

[1]

  1. "Languages". Apache HTTP Server. Black Duck Software. Ohloh. Retrieved {{Subst:TODAY}}. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
{{refn|{{cite web |access-date={{Subst:TODAY}} |title=Languages |work=Apache HTTP Server |agency=Ohloh |publisher= Black Duck Software |url=https://www.ohloh.net/p/apache/analyses/latest/languages_summary}}}}
{{reflist}}

[1]

  1. "Languages". Apache HTTP Server. Black Duck Software. Ohloh. Retrieved 4 April 2014.

Errors

If the reference or note content is missing, then Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content. will be displayed.

If the note content contains an equals sign (=), the equals sign will be interpreted as setting off a named parameter and cause an error. This can be worked around by using a numbered parameter, for example:

Markup Renders as
{{refn|1+1=2}}

Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

{{refn|1= 1+1=2}}

[1]

  1. 1+1=2

See also

{{#lst:Help:Cite errors/Cite error group refs without references|rlt}}

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData documentation for this template used by VisualEditor and other tools; see the monthly parameter usage report for this template.

TemplateData for Refn

This template is used to create footnotes in Wikipedia, as an alternative and complement to the <ref> tag.

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

ParameterDescriptionTypeStatus
content1

The content of the footnote.

Contentsuggested
namename

The name of the footnote. Corresponds to the "name" attribute of the <ref> tag.

Stringoptional
groupgroup

The reference group. Corresponds to the "group" attribute on the <ref> tag.

Stringoptional