This page tells you more how you can use variables in wiki pages. This is especially helpful within templates, but also on "normal" wiki pages (like for signing a contribution).

Contents

  1. Predefined Variables
  2. Expanding Variables
  3. Getting Variables
    1. At Every Page Refresh
    2. When Saving the Page

Predefined Variables

The following variables are substituted when a page is saved. Note that they will appear unreplaced in the preview!

Variable

Description

Example

@PAGE@

Name of the page (useful for template pages)

HelpOnPageCreation

@DATE@

Current date in the system's format

2004-08-30

@TIME@

Current date and time in the user's format

2004-08-30 06:38:05

@ME@

Just the user's name

TheAnarcat

@USERNAME@

Just the user's name (or his domain/IP)

TheAnarcat

@USER@

Signature "-- loginname"

-- TheAnarcat

@SIG@

Dated Signature "-- loginname date time"

-- TheAnarcat 2004-08-30 06:38:05

@MAILTO@

A fancy mailto: link with the user's data

None - on public sites, better use the MailTo macro

Expanding Variables

You can use HomePageName/MyDict to expand those variables, just put a dictionary (see HelpOnDictionaries) there with your variables and values. For example, 

 VAR1:: substitution 1
 VAR2:: substitution 2

Getting Variables

At Every Page Refresh

You can use these values using the GetVal macro: 

<<GetVal(WikiDict,var1)>> <<GetVal(WikiDict,var2)>> <<GetVal(WikiDict,var3)>>

Renders as:

When Saving the Page

If the variables are set on !UserName/!MyDict (UserName must of course be replaced as appropriate), you can get the variables when saving any page with @var1@, @var2@, ...etc. instead of the GetVal macro.

/!\ Note that data in dict pages is cached and does not require opening and parsing the page file for each access to the value. In CGI, the value is fetched from a pickle, in long running process, the pickle is loaded once and then the value is accessed from memory.

/!\ Note that saving template pages and using preview does not expand variables. Other than that, variable expansion is very global and happens anywhere on the page, including code displays, comments, processing instructions and other "special" areas of a page you might think are excluded.