Template:Broken ref/doc

is the software extension for the footnotes system. Cite.php includes error checking and generates error messages using MediaWiki interface messages. When Cite.php encounters an error, it generates a message pulled from a MediaWiki interface page. The MediaWiki pages are customized to use Broken ref to control the display of the error message and to add a category. Broken ref uses namespace detection to choose whether pages are categorized or not and if error messages show or not.

Namespaces
This template causes error messages to show only in certain namespaces. Category sorting is set by a sortkey in the template.

Errors on talk and other pages do not show by default but can be enabled by adding a rule to :

Categories
The template causes pages that show and error to be placed in a maintenance category. Pages in these categories are then repaired by editors. Errors on talk and other pages do not add the category. Category management is done through broken ref/cat.


 * Category:Pages with citation errors: main category.
 * Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting: default category.
 * Category:Pages with broken reference names
 * MediaWiki:Cite error references no text
 * Category:Pages with missing references list
 * MediaWiki:Cite error group refs without references

Parameters
Error messages use:
 * msg text of the error message
 * lang language using ISO code
 * help subpagename of help page. This parameter is also used to determine the category by Template:Broken ref/cat.
 * nocat set to 'true' to suppress the category and the  class; use when transcluding the WikiMedia interface page for documentation purposes

Prefix interface pages use:
 * prefix text that precedes the message
 * lang language using ISO code

Examples
Use the following example when editing MediaWiki error message pages:

By including nocat, the nocat parameter can be passed to broken ref.

Transcluding error messages
When creating documentation, the error messages can be transcluded so that the messages are automatically updated. Add true to suppress the error category and the class that hides the error in some namespaces. The message transclusion always adds a hard line break at the end.

To style the text in red to more closely simulate the message, use the red template.

To style the text to exactly simulate the message, use the error template.

Languages
These languages are supported. The list of languages is selected from the top uses at Database reports/User preferences. Language management is done through broken ref/lang.


 * en:
 * es:
 * fr:
 * pt-br:
 * ru:
 * de:
 * id:
 * ar:
 * nl:
 * zh-cn:
 * ro:
 * it:
 * tr:

Plus the English variants: Originally these were transcluded, but not all MediaWiki pages support such transclusion.
 * en-gb:
 * en-ca:

Interface pages
Complete list of interface pages by language: