Template:Var

{{{1}}}

Template documentation

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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. This method is preferred to simply italicizing for many reasons, including accessibility, separation of presentation and content, semantic Web, and metadata; In XHTML and HTML|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 in MediaWiki's ‎<math>...‎</math> tags (or any other stand-alone mathematical markup) are being used.

Example

{{var|username}}

outputs the following HTML:

‎<var>username‎</var>

which renders as:

username

Note that on the screen or in print, this renders as simple italicization, as does ''username'' (using pairs of apostrophes) or ‎<i>username‎</i> (using HTML), yet it carries more semantic meaning than either of these methods.

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.

More examples

Markup	Renders as
The HTML code: : {{tag|var|content=username}} renders as: : {{var|username}}	The HTML code: ‎<var>username‎</var> renders as: 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 documentation for this template used by VisualEditor and other tools.

Var

Creates <var> tags with default padding for better kerning when italicized.

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
ID	id	Adds the “id” attribute to the <var> tag.	String	optional
Class Name	class	Adds the “class” attribute to the <var> tag.	String	optional
CSS Style	style	Additional CSS properties	String	optional
Tooltip	title	Adds the “title” attribute to the <var> tag.	String	optional
Language	lang	Adds the ISO 639 language code to the <var> tag. Auto value en	String	optional
Content	1	The contents of the <var>...</var> tags.	Line	required

Edit parameter translations

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Var/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template’s sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Please add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.