Last modified: 2009-07-29 02:00:11 UTC
Hallo, I have only used the MediaWiki software for two weeks, and found the need to have variable number of parameters, if-statements to check on them and loop-statements to process them. I did find one page discussing this topic: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Extended_template_syntax. After I have played around a little, I decided to make a complete proposal, and to build a prototype. I will attach all my relevant files. However, please keep in mind that my MediaWiki and Wikipedia experience is limited until now. Also, this is my very first PHP programming! As such, I apologize if nettique are not perfectly correct in all handling. I have softly asked around, and it was recommended to open this "bug" for easier tracking. What really would be needed is someone with extensive experience to review the suggested syntax, plus the prototype code (especially aspect performance), to ensure that it is acceptable as proposal. Once this is accepted, I can also write some maintenance/parserTest examples. I will attach my work. regards, brian
Created attachment 367 [details] Prototype code with example pages I could not find a reference to the diff tool used by other people, and have just added both the original and new Parser.PHP files. A diff between the two files can then easily be made. The other files are example pages from the MediaWiki on which the prototype was build.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Extended_template_syntax_%28a_proposal_and_prototype%29
I think this is a very wrong direction to go in; wiki is meant to be *simple* freeform text and not a fancy macro language with looping constructs. Leaning towards marking this WONTFIX.
Would it be acceptable if it was optional, Brion?
There's no such thing as optional; either it's there or it isn't. There but turned off is still churning up the code base with the extra stuff. Either we need to kill it, or somebody needs to defend it, and the implementation needs to be as clean (and safe!) as possible.
Hallo Brion, You are right that this is not unfortunately not perfectly simple. Let me give you an example of what I wanted to do. Assume we have different software releases, and we discover a bug. We would like to write a small page about the problem (testing MediaWiki for this), and show the releases that contains the problem. Also we have a category per release for bugs. So someone can just look at the relevant category to see all bugs for their release. For all the people in the group, this must be a simple process. They write a new page to describe a bug, and add the template: {{Bug|title=Brian made stupid mistake|rel=1.3|rel=1.4a|rel=1.4b|critical=true}} The above template usuage takes any number of releases, and also an optional flag critical. The template itself could be: '''Title:''' {{{title}}} '''Releases:''' {{rel#1}} up to {{rel#N}}} {{{if|{{{critical}}}=true}}} '''Critical:''' Must Install! {{{endif}}} {{{loop|rel}}} [[Category:OurSoftware{{{rel#}}}|{{PAGENAME}}]] {{{endloop}}} At the template usage level, it still feels very much the same as before. The additional features are only interested to those that write the templates on which the rest builds the information. For the coding I have to make all apologies. It is my first attempt at PHP. I took your advice to "Hack up the parser" to make a small contribution. If there should be an interest to use this code, then of course, a thorough review by someone experienced with both PHP and MediaWiki should be done. I have tried to writeup as much as possible, and build a number of examples (in the attached files). If there is anymore help that I can provide with this, just email me. regards, brian
That sounds like structured data, for which a wiki isn't an appropriate tool. For instance, we use a special-purpose bug tracker (bugzilla) for bug tracking.
The thing is, this would complicate some templates, but in doing so would make the code for articles using those templates potentially simpler and cleaner. I think the priority should me towards making article code simpler. Templates are already a kind of back-end thing.
please also have a look at Bug 364 (http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=364), it's basically the same thing. I personally think that default values for parameters would be a good idea (the template-as-default-value thing does *not* really work). An if-syntax would indeed be helpfunl and reduce the number of templates / would help to clean up some crufty workarounds (like template1, template2, template3...), but we would need a "nice" way to write that. More advanced things like for-each are probably over-the-top. The template-system does not need to have turing-power.
We have the ParserFunctions extension now.
*** Bug 9653 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 10053 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Marking FIXED per comment #10. The basic premise of this is long-since finished.
