MediaWiki templates inherit parameters.

Question

Is it possible to get a template to inherit parameters from another template? I can't think of a better way to phrase the question so allow me to give an example.

Say you have two templates {{test1}} and {{test2}} that are being used on a page called "Test Page".

Template:Test1:

{{{par1}}}<br>
{{{par2}}}<br>
{{test2}}
<!--{{test2|par3={{{par3}}}|par4={{{par4}}}}}-->

Template:Test2:

{{{par3}}}<br>
{{{par4}}}<br>

Test Page:

{{test1|par1=aaa|par2=bbb|par3=ccc|par4=ddd}}

So what I would like to have happen is have it display:

aaa
bbb
ccc
ddd

The normal way of doing this would be to include the line that is commented out in Template:Test1. Is there anyway to get it to automatically pass the parameters though? For something this mundane, it is isn't a problem to explicitly say par3={{{par3}}} but when the templates get much more complex, it could be REALLY helpful. Any tips are most appreciated.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 01 '13 at 18:52

2

What you're trying to describe is argument forwarding. No, this is not possible with mediawiki templates alone.

The new Lua engine (available to test as Extension:Lua, eventually aiming to become part of the core) that is in development appears to make this possible.

answered Mar 01 '13 at 18:52

Eric

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Darnit. Thanks for the answer and for the additional information! – Zack Mar 01 '13 at 19:01

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 02 '13 at 11:30

You can use

{{test2|{{{arg1}}}={{{par1}}}|{{{arg2}}}={{{par2}}}}}

in test1, and call it as

{{test1|arg1=par1|arg2=par2|par1=foo|par2=bar}}

but you can probably save a fair amount of sanity by just waiting for Lua. (It has been already deployed on some smaller Wikipedias, and will be deployed on all in March, so it is not a long wait.)

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 13 '15 at 21:26

First, your Test1 template invoking Test2 with no parameters makes no sense. You invoked it as {{test2}} (no parameters).

If you want page-global variables, I would suggest using Mediawiki Variables plugin. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Variables

Additionally, it is good practice to "default" template parameters with a vertical bar, such as {{{par1|}}} or {{{par2|None}}}. Otherwise, if the parameter isn't given, the resulting wikitext will be the parameter name with the braces. For example: {{{par1|}}} returns a blank string if that parameter isn't given, but {{{par1}}} actually produces "{{{par1}}}" as the string if the parameter is absent, which probably isn't useful.

Back to my example using Variables, I have adapted your example (par1 is the argument going into test1 template, par2 is the argument going into test2 template):

Template test1 becomes:

{{{par1|}}}<br/>
{{#vardefine: par2|{{{par2|}}} }}
{{test2}}

Template test2 becomes:

{{#var:par2}}<br/>

MediaWiki templates inherit parameters.

3 Answers3