Template:Normalized pagename/doc

{{Normalized pagename}} is a template which normalizes a page's name, as returned by {{FULLPAGENAME}} and other page name magic words, by replacing numeric character references and character entity references (collectively, "character references") with the actual character (for instance, " is replaced with "). This is most often useful when using the #ifeq parser function to compare the value of these magic words with values passed into a template via a parameter.

By default, {{Normalized pagename}} uses {{FULLPAGENAME}}, but it accepts an unnamed parameter allowing other values to be used, e.g. {{Normalized pagename|{{PAGENAME}}}}.

Technical details

Characters in page names

Several different characters may be replaced by {{FULLPAGENAME}} and related magic words. The replacements made for a particular title can be viewed using the code {{ #tag: syntaxhighlight | {{PAGENAME:Title}} }}; for instance, for the title "We'll Be There" - Rex & Weevil, this code produces "We'll Be There" - Rex & Weevil.

On this wiki, the following character replacements are made by {{FULLPAGENAME}} and related magic words. Note that because a lone period (.) is not output (it represents the working directory in Unix-like systems and Microsoft Windows) and a leading colon (:foo) is stripped, they are prefixed by a capital "A"; the other characters are also prefixed for consistency. The asterisk (*) is also shown preceding the "A" since when it is the leading character (*foo), it gets replaced with a character reference. The characters < > [ ] { | } are illegal in page titles in MediaWiki, and the character # introduces the fragment identifier in URLs, so these characters are not listed below ({{FULLPAGENAME}} and related magic words will strip these characters, or output nothing, when they are passed in).

A! A!
A" A"
A$ A$
A% A%
A& A&
A' A'
A( A(
A) A)
A* A*
*A *A
A+ A+
A, A,
A. A.
A/ A/
A: A:
A; A&#59;
A= A=
A? A?
A@ A@
A\ A\
A^ A^
A_ A
A` A`
A~ A~

Replacements

{{Normalized pagename}} performs the following replacements.

Numeric character reference	Character entity reference	Character
"	"	"
&	&	&
'	'	'
&#59;	—	;
=	—	=

Why not #titleparts?

{{Normalized pagename}} is written using the #replace string function, even though the #titleparts parser function can perform the same task without requiring multiple functions: {{ #titleparts: {{PAGENAME:"We'll Be There" - Rex & Weevil}} }} → "We'll Be There" - Rex & Weevil. This is because #titleparts automatically strips any content after a hash (#), including the hash itself. {{FULLPAGENAME}} and related magic words also strip this content from input, but {{Normalized pagename}} may be passed raw strings directly, without using any magic words, and these strings may contain hashes which should not affect the output. For example, the string Nekogal #2 results in the following outputs:

• {{PAGENAME:Nekogal #2}} → Nekogal
• {{ #titleparts: Nekogal #2 }} → Nekogal
• {{Normalized pagename|Nekogal #2}} → Nekogal #2

Breaking the string into pieces separated by the hash, for example with the #explode string function or the Extension:Arrays parser functions, and running #titleparts on each piece separately, also will not work, since this would also break the string on the hashes used in the numeric character references, preventing their replacement. For example, using #explode on {{PAGENAME:"We'll Be There" - Rex & Weevil}} results in the pieces & 34;We& 39;ll Be There& 34; - Rex & 38; Weevil.