Template:Var/doc

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 Template:Tnull, to make them more distinguishable, like these serif examples: I, l.

Examples

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: Template:Samp Template:Kbd (where hostname is the IP address or ...) If it is correct, press Template:Key press
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

Marks text as an HTML variable

Template parameters

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

See also

• {{mvar}} which makes the argument italic and formats as mathematics
• {{math}} which formats its argument as mathematics
• {{bigmath}}, the same as {{math}} but makes it bigger