Template:Var

{{{1}}}

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{{VAR}}
{{variable}}

This template is used on approximately 279,000 pages.
To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

Usage

This template is to help facilitate the displaying of variable names (in mathematics, computer source code, wikimarkup in template documentation, metasyntactic variables, etc.) with the semantically correct <var>...</var> tags, which also renders the variable in italics, as is customary. Alternately, editors may use <var>...</var> tags directly in Wikitext to produce identical output.

The use of <var> or {{var}} is preferred to simply italicizing for many reasons, including accessibility, separation of presentation and content, semantic Web, and metadata. In XHTML and HTML, the <var> element has semantic meaning, while simple italicization does not. This template provides a tiny hint of kerning to compensate for the italicization and enhance readability.

"Variable" in this sense may include arbitrary or unknown names or terms, examples of human input, arithmetical variables in equations, etc. This template (and the underlying XHTML) are generally not used if MediaWiki's <math>...</math> tags (or any other stand-alone mathematical markup) are being used.

At times, you may wish to use a serif font. This is especially true when attempting to render single-letter variables like "I" (upper-case "i") and "l" (lower-case "L"), since they are nearly indistinguishable (if at all). In such situations, use the {{varserif}} template instead of {{var}}, to make them more distinguishable, like these serif examples: I, l.

Examples

Wikitext	HTML	Renders as
{{var\|username}}	<var>username</var>	`username`

Markup	Renders as
<var>username</var>	`username`
{{var\|username}}	`username`
The commandline should read: {{samp\|%}} {{kbd\|1=ssh {{var\|hostname}}}}<br />(where {{var\|hostname}} is the IP address or ...)<br />If it is correct, press {{key press\|Enter}}	The commandline should read: `%` `ssh hostname` (where `hostname` is the IP address or ...) If it is correct, press `↵ Enter`
in this equation, let {{var\|x}}{{=}}1 and {{var\|y}}{{=}}120 ...	in this equation, let `x`=1 and `y`=120 ...
{{para\|accessdate\|{{var\|todays_date}}}}	`\|accessdate=todays_date`

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Var in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Var

Marks text as an HTML variable

Template parameters[Edit template data]
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
variable	`1`	no description	Line	required
class	`class`	no description	String	optional
ID	`id`	no description	String	optional
CSS style	`style`	no description	String	optional
language	`lang`	no description Example c++	String	optional
HTML title (hovertext)	`title`	no description	String	optional

Usage

Examples

TemplateData

See also