Merc: Created page with "{{Documentation subpage}} {{tlr|VAR|variable}} {{high-use| 6000 }} ==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 {{tag|var}} tags, which also renders the variable..."

2025-05-03T11:51:07Z

Created page with "{{Documentation subpage}} {{tlr|VAR|variable}}  {{high-use| 6000 }} ==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 {{tag|var}} tags, which also renders the variable..."

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{{Documentation subpage}}
{{tlr|VAR|variable}}

{{high-use| 6000 }}

==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 [[Semantic HTML|semantically correct]] {{tag|var}} tags, which also renders the variable in italics, as is customary. Alternately, editors may use {{tag|var}} tags directly in [[Help:Wikitext|Wikitext]] to produce identical output.

The use of {{tag|var|o}} or {{tl|var}} is preferred to simply italicizing for many reasons, including [[WP:Accessibility|accessibility]], [[separation of presentation and content]], [[semantic Web]], and [[WP:METADATA|metadata]]. In [[XHTML]] and [[HTML]], the {{tag|var|o}} 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 {{em|not}} used if MediaWiki's {{tag|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 {{tlx|varserif}} template instead of {{tnull|var}}, to make them more distinguishable, like these serif examples: {{varserif|I}}, {{varserif|l}}.

===Examples===
{{Markup HTML Rendered|<nowiki>{{var|username}}</nowiki>|<var>username</var>|{{var|username}}}}

{{Markup
| <nowiki><var>username</var></nowiki>
| <var>username</var>
| <nowiki>{{var|username}}</nowiki>
| {{var|username}}
| <nowiki>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}}</nowiki>
| 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}}
| <nowiki>in this equation, let {{var|x}}{{=}}1 and {{var|y}}{{=}}120 ...</nowiki>
| in this equation, let {{var|x}}{{=}}1 and {{var|y}}{{=}}120 ...
| <nowiki>{{para|accessdate|{{var|todays_date}}}}</nowiki>
| {{para|accessdate|{{var|todays_date}}}}
}}

==TemplateData==
{{Format TemplateData|<templatedata>
{
"params": {
"1": {
"label": "variable",
"type": "line",
"required": true
},
"class": {
"type": "string"
},
"id": {
"label": "ID",
"type": "string"
},
"style": {
"label": "CSS style",
"type": "string"
},
"lang": {
"label": "Language tag",
"example": "en-UK",
"type": "line",
"description": "An IETF BCP 47 language tag",
"suggestedvalues": [
"en-US",
"en-UK",
"es-419",
"en",
"es",
"de",
"zh"
]
},
"title": {
"label": "HTML title (hovertext)",
"type": "string"
}
},
"description": "Marks text as an HTML variable",
"format": "inline"
}
</templatedata>}}

== See also ==
* {{tl|mvar}} which makes the argument italic and formats as mathematics
* {{tl|math}} which formats its argument as mathematics
* {{tl|bigmath}}, the same as {{tl|math}} but makes it bigger

{{Semantic markup templates|show}}

<includeonly>{{Sandbox other||

[[Category:Mathematical formatting templates]]
[[Category:Programming typing-aid templates]]
[[Category:Semantic markup templates]]
[[Category:Wikipedia XHTML tag-replacing templates]]
}}</includeonly>

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