Template:Refn/doc

Purpose

This template is used to create footnotes in Wikipedia, as an alternative and complement to the <ref>. Because of a technical limitation, some of the standard Wikipedia markup elements that are often used in the article prose do not work within a set of <ref>...</ref> tags, including but not limited to the pipe trick, template substitution and another "nested" set of <ref>...</ref> tags. For example, the following does not work as expected:

1. <ref>[[Help:Footnotes|]]</ref> (Generates: [[Help:Footnotes|]] instead of a wikilink)
2. <ref>{{SUBST:TODAY}}</ref> (Generates: {{SUBST:TODAY}} instead of the date that the edit was made)
3. <ref>Explanatory footnote<ref>Citation</ref></ref> (Generates: Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). </ref>)

Replacing the outermost <ref>...</ref> set with {{Refn}} allows for the use of the markup elements listed above.

Usage

{{refn|group=groupname|name=name|Contents of the footnote}}

• groupname: Groupname per WP:REFGROUP; if not specified, then the main and nested references will be rendered into the same reference list
• name: Reference name per WP:REFNAME

Examples

Footnotes with citations

Markup	Renders as
[markup]	[rendering]

Other forms of citations

Markup	Renders as
[markup]	[rendering]

Substitution

The first example shows that substitution does not work in a regular <ref>...</ref> tag (the |access-date= does not appear correctly). The second example shows that the |access-date= is substituted correctly within {{refn}}.

Markup	Renders as
[markup]	[rendering]
[markup]	[rendering]

Errors

If the reference or note content is missing, then Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content. will be displayed.

If the note content contains an equals sign (=), the equals sign will be interpreted as setting off a named parameter and cause an error. This can be worked around by using a numbered parameter, for example:

Markup	Renders as
[markup]	[rendering]
[markup]	[rendering]

Help:Footnotes

See also

• {{r}} (another template supporting nested footnotes)
• {{citeref}} (a different method to create nested links working on citation template anchor level rather than <ref></ref> markup level)

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Refn in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Refn

This template is used to create footnotes in Wikipedia, as an alternative and complement to the <ref> tag.

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
content	1 refn	The content of the footnote.	Content	required
name	name	The name of the footnote. Corresponds to the "name" attribute of the <ref> tag.	String	optional
group	group	The reference group. Corresponds to the "group" attribute on the <ref> tag.	String	optional