Template:Search/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Search.
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template uses Lua:

Module:Search

Usage of this template and related alternatives

Template for creating a list of URLs searching for the same string

This page's template creates a short, parenthetical list of abbreviated external links to different searchable locations for the same search string. This could be useful on a talk page to encourage researching a topic from a variety of sources.

For example:

{{Search|Alarm clock|long=y}}

produces the following list of links to various searches for Alarm clock (hover over a link for a tooltip showing the search link's title):

The abbreviations stand for:

wp - Wikipedia search
gwp - Google search of Wikipedia
g - Google search
bwp - Bing search of Wikipedia
b - Bing search
eb - Encyclopaedia Britannica search
co - Columbia Encyclopedia search
gct - Google search of the PC Magazine Encyclopedia
sw - ScienceWorld search (sister site of the more famous MathWorld site)
arc - Internet Archive search
ht - HathiTrust Digital Library search

For an abbreviated list of links, omit the |long=y parameter.

Templates for searching Wikipedia

Search links

A search link stores a query in a link that takes you to live search results for that stored search. They're found on user pages and talk pages. Use one to bring the full feature set of MediaWiki Search, or features of external search engines, to bear on users unfamiliar with their search parameters.

One type of search link is a wikilink with all the capabilities of Search (search box), and with standard wikilink syntax: [[Special:Search/query| label]]. So this search link will (1) navigate: [[Special:search/Wales]] → Special:search/Wales or (2) search: [[Special:search/~Wales | search/~Wales]] → search/~Wales if you prefix a ~ tilde character.

All other search links are made from a template that will build a URL instead of wikilink. A URL can for example can call off-site search engines to search Wikipedia.

{{Search link}} offers all the capabilities of Searching (search box), plus extra (URL) parameters for combinations of namespaces, and where you can escape the 20-results-per page-limitation, shareable: {{search link | et al | ''label'' | ns4 | ns5 | limit = 123}} → label.
{{Regex}} – develop an advanced regex search. {{regex | \<--.*--> | label = Articles with comments missing the ! bang character | prefix=0}} → Articles with comments missing the ! bang character
{{Template usage}} – develop a template regex search, and pinpoint specific template-call details. {{Template usage | Convert | \{{!}}C\{{!}}F | 0 | Articles that convert Celsius to Fahrenheit}} → Articles that convert Celsius to Fahrenheit
{{ShortSearch}} – create three search links: {{ShortSearch | system operations research}} → WP GWP G (search Wikipedia, "Google" Wikipedia, and Google search)
{{wpsearch}} – create five search links: {{wpsearch|collaborative search}} → collaborative search – Wikipedia search | Google search | Bing search | DuckDuckGo search | Yahoo search
{{Wikidata search link}} – creates a Wikidata search link for descriptions, entities, items, properties, etc. → https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=Universe&title=Special:Search&fulltext=1

Search boxes

{{Search box}} – Simple search box with choice of button below or to the right
{{Search prefixes}} – Multiple pages' subpages are searched at once.
{{Archive banner}} – For searching archives. It is of banner-style, like many other archive templates.

Search boxes are made by <inputbox> tags. See mw:Extension:InputBox.

Page title searches

{{Canned search}} – Link to automated search results for a given term
{{In title}} – Search for pages whose name contains given words
{{Look from}} – Search for pages whose name begins with a given word

For searches with exact matches, exact in upper and lower cases, or in punctuation marks, see Help:Searching § grep.

Other Wikipedia editor help

{{Linksearch}} – Searches for external links matching a URL
{{dabsearch|term}} – External tool to find page titles containing a (term) in parentheses; useful for Wikipedia:disambiguation study
{{Help desk searches}} – Navbox with list of links to Google pages, specialized to search for example user pages, village pump, etc.; useful for Wikipedia:Help desk tasks
{{Spamsearch}} – Searches user pages for common spams, e.g. "we service", "leading manufacturer", etc.