DPL:FAQ

Using conditions within DPL table

I have the following code:

<dpl>
 category= *Camera
 include = {rating info}:camera
 table =class="wikitable sortable"       border=2 cellpadding=2,UserID,Rating
 tablerow    =align=middle bgcolor=#eeffee¦%%, bgcolor=#ffdddd¦%%
</dpl>

Right now it prints out a table of users and their ratings about a product (the camera). I wish to add the feature such that if the rating is say equal to +2, then the background color for that particular user block changes according to the rating value. So if the rating is equal to -2 for another user, then the background color for that user block within the table is of a different color.

Thanks!! Casshyr 22:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

See DPL Example 003 ! Gero 09:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:ParserFunctions --Subfader 04:37, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the example Gero! However, it still isn't working on my own mediaWiki...I even tried fooling around with the example and it works over there but not on my server.

<dpl>
category=camera
include={rating info}:camera
table=,UserID,Rating
tablerow=align=right ²{#if:²{#pos:%%¦133}²¦bgcolor=#ff9999 ¦bgcolor=#ffffaa}²|%% 
</dpl>

I basically use the exact same code as the example, and it doesn't work on mine. What could I be missing something? (i do have the parser extensions v1.1.1 installed for mediaWiki v1.14) Casshyr

The problem is probably the #replace command. I use a slightly modified version of StringFunctions.php which allows for regular expressions. It is contained in the Download archive. Gero 21:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! It works now!! Casshyr

I want to create a "Category Cloud." How do I change the font size based on the number of articles for a category?

You have to use one dpl query to select a list of suitable categories. Within the format statement of that query you call another query (in a separate template) which calculates the number of members for each category. This template uses #expr to calculate the font-size. Make sure to use an advanced version of ParserFunctions extension which really understands "floor" and "sqrt".

For an example see Test category cloud.

Thank you! I really appreciate your help. Your programming is awesome. (BTW, following your advice, I needed the extended parser functions). This is a great way of quickly "seeing" a large number of articles. -Jim Miller

My article name contains underscores, but in the DPL result they won´t appear.

Normally, DPL replaces all undercores in article names by spaces when showing the result. You can replace underscores by their symbolic html name via the 'replaceintitle' statement. So DPL will no longer recognize the underscores and later the html engine will translate the symbolic name to underscores.

This wiki contains an Article_with_underscore. Normally DPL would show it as

• Article with underscore

. But with {{#dpl:titlematch=%underscore|replaceintitle=/ /,_}} you will get

• Article_with_underscore

When I use multi-column output my background color is cluttered

There is a special parameter named rowcolformat which allows to set the background color, cell-spacing etc. in combinaton with 'columns=' or 'rows='. See also DPL:Requests_for_new_features_Archive#Global background-color.

When I write a "What links here" DPL query, redirections are ignored

Say you have an Article A1 which links to B and an Article A2 which links to B2. But B2 is redirected to B.

{{#Wgraph: name=FAQ1 | png | thumb=50 |

 node A1 {color=green}
 node A2 {color=green}
 node B  {color=red}
 node B2 {color yellow}
 edge A1 B {}
 edge A2 B2 {}
 edge B2 B {label = #REDIRECT }
 orientation = left_to_right

}}

A standard DPL query using

linksto = B

will only deliver Article A1 because the default is to ignore #redirects.

redirects = include
linksto = B

will give you Article A1 and B2 as B2 redirects to B. But this may not be what you want. You still won´t get A2 as it links to B2 and not to B. The trick is to get the direct links to B in the normal way and to use a nested subquery which finds the pages which link to pages that redirect to B. We write the query in a way that it accepts the name of the target page (B) as a parameter:

Template:LinksToWithRedirect
----------------------------
 {{#dpl:
  |linksto={{{1}}}
 }}
 {{#dpl:
  |linksto={{{1}}}
  |redirects=only
  |format=,²{LinksTo¦%PAGE%}²,
 }}

Template:LinksTo
----------------
 {{#dpl:
   |debug=1
   |linksto={{{1}}}
   |format=,*[[%PAGE%¦%TITLE%]]\n,
 }}

Now calling {{LinksToWithRedirect|B}} will return A1 and A2.

• A1

• A2
• C

See also Listing Redirects and Location

Getting pages with references to templates with particular parameters

With DPL you can find all pages which use a certain template. You can specify that you only want to see those articles where a ceratin parameter of that template has a certain value. You can even allow for a group of values if you use the power of regular expression as the following examples shows:

Let's say that your company uses a wiki to assign and keep track of tasks. So, let's say that you have created a todo template which, as a parameter, takes the name, username, or some other semblance of a name of a person responsible for the task. If you now want to see the tasks which have been assigned to a given person you could use something like

<dpl>
    uses        = Template:Todo2
    include     = {Todo2}:1,{Todo2}:2
    includematch= /\|(Sam Brown)|(Brown)|(SBrown)/i
    table       = ,,Person,Task
</dpl>

which produces

Content page	Person	Task
Todotest1	Brown, Sam	To be done by Brown, Sam
Todotest2	Sam Brown	To be done by Sam Brown
Todotest3	SBrown	have to do what it says by SBrown

Note that the "i" makes the regexp case insensitive, so 'sbrown' would also match.

How do I produce a list or a table that begins with a template parameter instead of the article name?

Whenever I create a dpl list or table with template parameters it always produces a list with the article name appearing first. I would like one of the template parameters to appear first instead. For example, all the titles of books are the article names and each has a template with author, publisher, place of publication, and date. I would like to create a list in the format author, article title, place of publication, publisher, date (i.e., I want to automatically create bibliographic references in Chicago style with DPL). Is there a way to do this? Marcusperman 04:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there is a way: use a "-" as the second parameter of the table statement and use a phantom template which produces table rows. In this phantom template you can put a [[{{{%PAGE%}}}]] parameter in whatever column you like. Gero 17:52, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Inserting spaces and comma in the output

Just use the numeric html alias for comma: ,; you may want to have a space after that 'comma', so line wrapping will work normally:

{{#dpl:category=MyItems|listseparators=,[[%PAGE%|%TITLE%]], ,,}}

I want the article list separated by comma

There is a mode called 'inline' which does what you want.

mode=inline
inlinetext=, 

This will give something like Nig1, Nig2, Nig3, Nig4

Why does my deleted page still appear on Special:Wantedpages?

When a page is categorized such that it appears in a DPL query and is subsequently deleted, it will immediately disappear from the DPL query results. However, depending on how long the page has been around, it will temporarily still appear on Special:Wantedpages and navigating to the page's What Links Here page will still show the DPL query page as a page that links to it.

To get it to stop that unruly behavior, do one of the following:

• Wait awhile (an hour or so). The wiki will sort this out over time in a background process.
• Execute 'php runJobs.php' in the maintenance folder of your MediaWiki installation
• Open the DPL query page in edit mode and save it again (this will add to your Recent Changes page)
• Add reset=all in a final DPL query on the query page (see here.) This has other side effects - read about it first.

Why does my deleted page still have a link to a query page in its What Links Here list?

The answer to this is already in the previous section, but we wanted you to be able to find your question anyway.

How do I 'see' the wikitext my DPL generates?

There is a simple trick to DEBUG your DPL script:

Use a resultsheader and a resultsfooter to enclose all DPL output in pre and nowiki tags like this:

<dpl>
  ...
  resultsheader=<pre><nowiki>
  resultsfooter=</nowiki></pre>
  ...
</dpl>

NOTE: since version 1.4.2 you can also use the debug parameter. Just set "debug=5" in your DPL!

How do I offset an ordered list by a certain number?

Use the format statement and define an offset for the list:

<dpl>
  category=Fictitious country
  format=<ol start="4">,<li>%PAGE%</li>,\n,</ol>
</dpl>

4. DPL Example 007 main page 1
5. Nigunda
6. Nigunda Test
7. Somango

Can DPL improve the MediaWiki search dialogue?

You can use DPL to show a list of files which match the search expression.

You could change your Mediawiki:Noexactmatch template as follows:

  '''There is no page titled "$1".''' You can [[:$1|create this page]].
  <dpl>
    debug=1
    resultsheader=    ''There are some pages similar to '$1':''\n
    titlematch=%$1%
    ignorecase=yes
  </dpl>

As an example enter 'rep' into the searchbox of this wiki and watch the response page.

How do I create tabular output?

The answer is (surprisingly) quite simple. There are a several of different methods depending on the data you want. Example A) and B) below return page 'meta-data'. Example C) below returns data on the page itself, either from within specific page sections or from templates used on the page.

A) A table of page meta-data;

The 'parser function' syntax of the DPL ({{#dpl:...) gives the cleanest looking code, and is used below for that reason. However, the regular <DPL> syntax works in an identical way but with different layout.

{{#dpl:
  |category       = Country
  |count          = 10
  |mode           = userformat
  |addauthor      = true
  |addpagesize    = true
  |addpagecounter = true
  |addfirstcategorydate = true
  |userdateformat       = d-m-Y
  |listseparators = 
    {¦ class="sortable"
      \n! 
      \n! Date
      \n! Name
      \n! Author
      \n! Views
      \n! Size
    \n¦-,
      \n¦ align="right" ¦ %NR%
      \n¦ align="right" ¦ %DATE%
      \n¦ align="left"  ¦ [[%PAGE%]]
      \n¦ align="left"  ¦ [[User:%USER%¦%USER%]]
      \n¦ align="right" ¦ %COUNT%
      \n¦ align="right" ¦ %SIZE% B,
    \n¦-\n,
    ¦}
}}

Gives;

	Date	Name	Author	Views	Size
1	02-09-2007	Nig1	Gero	%COUNT%	166 B
2	02-09-2007	Nig2	Gero	%COUNT%	166 B
3	02-09-2007	Nig3	67.41.66.71	%COUNT%	174 B
4	03-09-2007	Nig4	67.41.66.71	%COUNT%	198 B
5	05-09-2007	Category:CountryA	67.41.66.71	%COUNT%	301 B
6	05-09-2007	Category:CountryB	67.41.66.71	%COUNT%	301 B

The key to understanding how this works is;

1. understand DPL basics (link?),
2. understand table syntax, and
3. understand the listseparators parameter.

Once you understand these things you will understand the above DPL.

B) The same table of page meta-data using the 'table' parameter;

I wish I knew how to do this...

The 'table' parameter is designed to create tabular output for elements which come from an include statement. So you would have to use a surrogate template ('phantom template') which could use the %variables%. But this works only if there exists a template which each of your article uses exactly once. So, normally you will have to use the approach shown above .

Gero 15:45, 18 September 2007 (CEST)

Can you show us how would it would look? (Assuming we had a template that was used in each page exactly once). --Dmb 21:29, 20 September 2007 (CEST)

C) A table of page section or template data;

See Test table.

I try to generate table formatting with DPL but it looks weird - to hell with the syntax!

Indeed, complex queries can be somewhat tricky. But this is not only a problem of DPL. MediaWiki is quite sensitive to blanks and linefeeds and half of your problems will probably come from there.

There is a simple trick how you can DEBUG your DPL script:

Use a resultsheader and a resultsfooter to enclose all DPL output in pre/nowiki tags like this:

<dpl>
  resultsheader=<pre><nowiki>
  resultsfooter=</nowiki></pre>
  titlematch=Nig%
  include=%1[300]
  format={|class=wikitable\n!article\n!beginning\n|-,\n[[%PAGE%|%TITLE%\n,\n,\n|}
</dpl>

You can also simply set debug=5 to achieve the same effect.

If we execute the above query (without the debug header/footer) the result will be deeply unsatisfactory:

[[Nig1|Nig1 [[Nig2|Nig2 [[Nig3|Nig3 [[Nig4|Nig4 [[Nigunda Test|Nigunda Test Nigunda Test History - Chapter Sequence in the article doesn´t matter for DPL .. [[Nigunda|Nigunda some facts about religious groups in Nigunda; some other facts about religious groups in Nigunda;[[Nigeria|Nigeria

See also: Nigerian military juntas of 1966-1979 and 1983-1998

More than 2,000 years ago. the Nok..→

article	beginning

But why?

---

With our little trick we can watch the output of DPL which would normally be immediately rendered by the wiki parser:

{{Extension DPL}}{|class=wikitable
!article
!beginning
|-
[[Nig1|Nig1]]


[[Nig2|Nig2]]


[[Nig3|Nig3]]


[[Nig4|Nig4]]


[[Nigunda Test|Nigunda Test]]

Nigunda Test History - Chapter  Sequence in the article doesn´t matter for DPL ..


[[Nigunda|Nigunda]]

some facts about religious groups in Nigunda; some other facts about religious groups in Nigunda;


[[Category:Tag_Event2]]

[[Nigeria|Nigeria]]

:<div class="noprint">''Main article: [[History of Nigeria|History of Nigeria]]''</div>
:<span class="boilerplate seealso">''See also: [[:Nigerian military juntas of 1966-1979 and 1983-1998|Nigerian military juntas of 1966-1979 and 1983-1998]]''</span>
More than 2,000 years ago. the [[Nok]]  [[Nigeria#History|..→]]

|}

---

And now we see: After the |- the next table row does not start with a '|'; and, apart from that, there is no "end of row" after each article. Now it is easy to correct the DPL query:

<dpl>
  titlematch=Nig%
  include=%1[300]
  format={|class=wikitable\n!article\n!beginning\n|-,\n|\n[[%PAGE%|%TITLE%]],\n|-,\n|}
  secseparators=\n|\n,
</dpl>

.. and we get the desired result:

article	beginning
Nig1
Nig2
Nig3
Nig4
Nigunda Test	Nigunda Test History - Chapter Sequence in the article doesn´t matter for DPL ..
Nigunda	some facts about religious groups in Nigunda; some other facts about religious groups in Nigunda;
Nigeria	See also: Nigerian military juntas of 1966-1979 and 1983-1998 More than 2,000 years ago. the Nok ..→

---

In our "debugger" it looks like this:

{{Extension DPL}}{|class=wikitable
!article
!beginning
|-
|
[[Nig1|Nig1]]
|
|-
|
[[Nig2|Nig2]]
|
|-
|
[[Nig3|Nig3]]
|
|-
|
[[Nig4|Nig4]]
|
|-
|
[[Nigunda Test|Nigunda Test]]
|
Nigunda Test History - Chapter  Sequence in the article doesn´t matter for DPL ..

|-
|
[[Nigunda|Nigunda]]
|
some facts about religious groups in Nigunda; some other facts about religious groups in Nigunda;


[[Category:Tag_Event2]]
|-
|
[[Nigeria|Nigeria]]
|
:<div class="noprint">''Main article: [[History of Nigeria|History of Nigeria]]''</div>
:<span class="boilerplate seealso">''See also: [[:Nigerian military juntas of 1966-1979 and 1983-1998|Nigerian military juntas of 1966-1979 and 1983-1998]]''</span>
More than 2,000 years ago. the [[Nok]]  [[Nigeria#History|..→]]
|-
|}

Where can I talk about DPL?

Try here;

• irc://irc.freenode.net/#DPL
• On the mailing list?
• On a discussion page somewhere on this site...

Using multiple categories with phantom template

I am absolutely indebted to the work on DPL. I pulled my hair out for 2 days trying to figure out a way to do this. One thing I can't figure out is using a phantom template with multiple categories separated by | will only return results from the category listed first. I have:

{{#dpl:
|category=Maintenance 2007 Week 41|Maintenance 2007 Week 42
|include={Infobox Maintenance}:date:start:end:page
|count=8
|table=class=maint,-,Date,Start,End,Title
}}

It only will display the output (correctly - date, start, end, page) from whichever category I list first, although it does it correctly. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Here is one of my call to Infobox Maintenance in Category:Maintenance 2007 Week 42

{{Infobox Maintenance
|title=Scheduled Maintenance on hosting environment
|date=10/17/2007
|start=4:00 AM
|end=8:00 AM
|description=blablah
}}

I think your problem lies in the pipe symbol. If you use the parser function syntax like you did in your first query the mediawiki parser will grab each '|' and will think it found the beginning of a new parameter. Try to escape the | by using {{!}} and you probably will get the correct result. Apart from that problem I wonder why you don´t get an error message. I think I will have a look at that. Gero 19:48, 15 October 2007 (CEST)

I had a look at the code and found that parameters which do not contain a "=" sign are silently ignored. In the next release there will be a warning in such situations. This should be enough to draw your attention to the pipe symbol, I guess.

A last remark: This document is the wrong place for problem reports. Please reply after you solved your problem and then I will remove the entry here. We use the Issue documents for problem reports. Gero 20:12, 15 October 2007 (CEST)

That works perfectly! Thanks for the quick response for a project that I have been under pressure to complete. I wasn't sure where to place the question. I assumed there was--Xigxag 21:28, 16 October 2007 (CEST) a problem with my syntax usage, not an issue with the extension. Thanks for the help and your hard work. --Xigxag 03:49, 16 October 2007 (CEST)

Another question - How would I go about suppressing the dpl no results warning message when using in the context above? I use |noresultsheader= but it doesn't seem to work.

use debug=1 or put a html comment (or a non breaking space nbsp;) directly after the noresultsheader= clause. Gero 08:43, 16 October 2007 (CEST)

Ah great. Things are looking quite nice now. I am going to look into using the calendar in the future. Thanks again. --Xigxag 21:28, 16 October 2007 (CEST)

Can DPL be used to post text based on category of current page?

I would like to print different output depending on the category of the current page. For example, if the current page is in category "able", "baker" should print, otherwise "charlie". --C4duser 19:48, 22 November 2007 (CET)

DPL can easily be used for that. title is filled with the current FULLPAGENAME and [no]resultsheader is used to create the output. Care should be payed to the fact that we must accept the current page as part of the query result (se skipthispage).

<nowikli>
  {{#dpl:title={{FULLPAGENAME}}|skipthispage=no|category=able|resultsheader=baker|noresultsheader=charlie}}
</nowiki>

How would I code a DPL tag be used to post a category list of when the article was created/updated for the current month

I would like to display all articles created and/or modified (updated) for the {{currentmonth}}. Can this be done? ... if {{currentmonth}} can't be used, how would I code a specific month (i.e., date=May%) to give me the result?

I need to use a comma in my regexp but DPL uses the comma as a separator ..

Use \x2c in yopur regexp. The hex code 2c (dec. 44) is equivalent to a comma within a regular expression.

Can DPL be used to create statistics per user?

I would like to use DPL to create information on a given user, as follows:

• Total number of edits for all articles.
• Earliest edit date for all articles.
• Total number of articles edited.

Is this possible? If so, could you give an example.

Thanks.

--C4duser 16:02, 31 December 2007 (CET)

---

Have a look at the scattergram which I put on the homepage of this wiki (see Scatter Demo 2). You might use a similar approach.

Gero 09:42, 2 January 2008 (CET)

Can DPL be used to create a subcategory listing with articles listed under their category

If I've got a category Colors with sub categories, Greens and Red, How can I automatically get a listing as follows

Colors

      Green
          Articles in category green
      Red
          Articles in category red

but using the category=*Colors in the DPL query.

This works if I use a pipe separated list of Categories category=Red|Green , but was hoping to avoid having to do this.

Any help, very much appreciated.

Mark

Reply

You can use nested queries. Create an outer query that returns all subcategories of 'Color' and use the format= parameter to output the result in a way that it can be used as an argument for the categories= parameter of the inner query.

Gero 14:06, 7 February 2008 (CET)

Example query, please?

I don't understand how to do this. Could you make an example query, assuming the category is "colors"? I'm not very good at this. You're the ones who said it was doable, now prove it :)

DPL Example 007 Gero 22:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Dafydd 07:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

My templates suddenly breaks

If the new parser is enabled (by default it is) then a lot of templates breaks, especially during calls to DPL. This will happen with release 1.12 (?) and later. The old parser can be used instead of the new one by a small addition to the file LocalSettings.php

$wgParserConf['class'] = 'Parser_OldPP';

There might be introduced ways to do this from the code DPL-code itselves. Jeblad 17:23, 13 April 2008 (CEST)

How do you reference include parameters in a format statement?

With an include line like this:

include = {my template}foo:bar:blat

how do you reference the values of foo, bar, and blat in a format statement? I see how to do it in a tablerow statement (with %%) but this doesn't work with format.

It would be helpful if the answer were documented here or here.

--Maiden taiwan 03:16, 1 May 2008 (CEST)

Reply

Currently there is no way to do this. That´s why it isn´t documented ;-)

I know that this would be quite a valuable feature to have but I do not have time for implementation. It should not be too hard to add this feature; I guess that for a person with some php experience it could be done in one day (but not in one hour ...) If you are going to change the code: please make sure that you use the sources from the latest version (1.72) as a starting point. Good luck! Gero 16:25, 1 May 2008 (CEST)

Sorting by the value of a template parameter?

Can DPL order its results based on the value of a template parameter? For example, suppose we have Template:Book:

This book is {{{title}}} written by {{{author}}}.

Can DPL produce a list of all articles that use this template, sorted by author?

--Maiden taiwan 20:36, 9 August 2008 (CEST)

Another sorting question: this time by value of phantom template

I want to have a DPL output that is ordered by the value of what is pulled in from a template with the include= syntax. In a set of articles included in one category I have placed a phantom template with meta data information in it. I want to pull that information out and then order the list by that information. For instance:
<dpl> category=dissertations include={Dissertation info}:date format=,# [[%PAGE%]]: ,\n, </dpl>

This produces a list with the date after each page name, but I want the list given in order by that date. Is this possible? If so, how?

Marcusperman 00:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Using DEFAULTSORT or other sort key to order results

I have a problem with lists of people, as alphabetical sorting (titlewithoutnamespace) is by page name and not by sort key. Listing them by first name works for very short lists, but as soon as there's more than 5-10 names we really need to sort by last name (see "Eksempel 4" for an example). The most practical solution would be to use DEFAULSORT, sorting by that key if it exists, and alphabetically by pagename if there is no DEFAULTSORT key. Is there any way to achieve this now, or if not, would this be possible in the not so distant future? I'm not up to writing code for something like thay myself, but I imagine that this would be a problem for others too. Cnyborg 02:18, 12 August 2008 (CEST)

There is a solution for your problem which already works with the current DPL version, see Sort articles on people by last name! Gero 16:45, 15 August 2008 (CEST)

Random pieces of one page

Is it possible to display random pieces of text from one page as a DPL result? For sure they must be marked somehow (may be as chapters or list elements). I know that this is possible for a random set of pages for one category using the include parameter. --Silversurfer 13:49, 22 August 2008 (CEST)

Solved for me. I use the RandomArea Mediawiki extension. --Silversurfer 18:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, this task is not well suited for DPL. DPL comes into the game when you want to pick content from more than one page. Gero 15:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Please, how did you combine randomArea and DPL? --Neodimio 09:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I don´t think they were combined at all. Gero 23:18, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

url/dynamic

Is it possible to parse variables into a page that uses DPL:includetrim?. URL Example:

http://semeb.com/dpldemo/index.php?title=Test_includetrim&nottitlematch=Random Chapter Content

--Messiah 14:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

How do you reference include parameters in a format/tablerow statement into a template?

With an include line like this:

include = {my template1}:%PAGE%:%TITLE%:foo1:foo2:foo3

how do you reference the values in a format/tablerow statement into a {my template2}? I see how to do it in a format statement, I can divide one info about one page:

include = {my template1}:foo1
format=, {{my template2|faa1=%TITLE%|faa2=,}},

if I need more info about one page, then I can use tablerow statement:

include = {my template1}:%PAGE%:foo1:foo2:foo3
table =,-,link to page, foo1, foo2, foo3
tablerow = %%,%%,%%,%%

but I would like to use more info about one page into {my template2}:

include = {my template1}:foo1:foo2:foo3
format=, {{my template2|faa1=%TITLE%|faa2=%foo1%|faa2=%foo1%|faa3=%foo2%|faa4=%foo3%}},

Are there any ideas?

--Bilardi 10:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply

I am afraid your request is too complicated for the table statement. See Test table for the maximum you can achieve with the table command.

I suggest to use both templates within the include statement instead.

include = {my template1}.myFormat,{my template2}.myFormat

You will have to provide two phantom templates called 'my template1.myFormat' and 'my template1.myFormat'. Within these templates you can provide table row formatting according to your own preferences. There are some examples for this in the manual. The row break can be handled in the format statement (third parameter), start and end of the table must be given in the first and in the fourth parameter of the format statement.

This kind of formatting always becomes a little tricky if you cannot guarantee that both templates are used exactly once (or at least once) in each article. Also the sequence in which these templates appear in your article should always be the same ... Good Luck!

Gero 16:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

All articles that transclude from the main namespace?

Can DPL produce a list of all articles that transclude from a given namespace? For example, I want a list of all articles that contain a line like this:

{{:...}}

i.e., that transclude content from the main namespace. It should not be recursive. Maiden taiwan 15:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

tablesortcol ignoring identical values?

I'm using tablesortcol to change the default sort from the first column. It appears that if any items in the column have the same value, the other page(s) are ignored when the table is generated. I read the manual entry for tablesortcol and there does not seem to be any reference to this behavior. Billm 15:48, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

• I've found a related bug here: Issue:Tablesortcol, same value in two or more rows, wrong data. Billm 15:52, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

includematch

Hi! I want to select pages which contains 'hello world' in Example chapter. As i understand 'includematch' can help me, but i don't understand how to make it... I tried to paste expression from examples and always got PHP errors (about delimiter or offset). I just want to select pages which contains 'hello world' to add them to the table. What do i need? --Maaboo 13:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Selection by MIME types?

Is it possible to select file page titles by img_major_mime or img_minor_mime? E.g. a list of images (img_major_mime=image) or a list of PDF files (img_minor_mime=pdf). --Subfader 00:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Iknow you can you titlematch = %.pdf but that's not 100% :) --Subfader 17:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Last edits which are not page creations?

How to list pages which were recently edited by a specified user but excluding those which were created by that user but not edited afterwards? I'm using this atm:

|modifiedby=UserName
|ordermethod=lastedit
|order=descending

So: Do not don't count page creation as edit. Any ideas? --Subfader 00:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Include: Exclude category tags

When your wiki articles have the categories at the end right below the last section and you want to include exactly the last chapters the page in which include those will list all teh category tags (example). I searched hard but didn't found a way to get rid of the category tags. --Subfader 01:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Solved hiding the div#catlinks in MediaWiki:Common.js. There might be a solution using {{#replace:}} though, but no idea how to add that to include=.--Subfader 16:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Ugly solution by using #regex. --Subfader 14:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

----

Indeed;: there is a simple solution using #replace. It requires, however, that you produce tabular output because it relies on the possibility of the tablerow statement to apply a regular expression to the content of a column:

  {{#dpl:
   |titlematch=Somalia
   |include=#%-1
   |table=,,last chapter
   |tablerow=²{#replace:%%¦/\[\[Category:.*\]\]\s*/¦¦}² 
  }}

delivers:

Content page

last chapter

Somalia

{{#replace: Template:Countries of East Africa Template:Countries of Africa Template:Arabian Sea Template:Red Sea Template:Indian Ocean Template:Member states of the African Union Template:Arab League Template:OIC Template:Cushitic-speakingaf:Somalië am:ሶማሊያ ar:الصومال an:Somalia frp:Somalie ast:Somalia bn:সোমালিয়া zh-min-nan:Somalia bs:Somalija bg:Сомалия ca:Somàlia cs:Somálsko cy:Somalia da:Somalia de:Somalia et:Somaalia el:Σομαλία es:Somalia eo:Somalio eu:Somalia fa:سومالی fr:Somalie gd:Somalia gl:Somalia - Soomaaliya ko:소말리아 hi:सोमालिया hr:Somalija io:Somalia ilo:Somalia id:Somalia is:Sómalía it:Somalia he:סומליה ka:სომალი kw:Somali sw:Somalia ku:Somaliya la:Somalia lv:Somālija lt:Somalis lij:Somalia hu:Szomália mk:Сомалија ms:Somalia nl:Somalië ja:ソマリア no:Somalia nn:Somalia oc:Somalia ug:سومالى pam:Somalia nds:Somalia pl:Somalia pt:Somália ro:Somalia rm:Somalia ru:Сомали sa:सोमालिया sq:Somalia simple:Somalia sk:Somálsko sl:Somalija so:Soomaaliya sr:Сомалија sh:Somalija fi:Somalia sv:Somalia tl:Somalia th:ประเทศโซมาเลีย vi:Somalia tg:Сумолӣ tr:Somali uk:Сомалі vo:Somalän zh:索马里|/\[\[Category:.*\]\]\s*/||}}

Gero 10:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

#replace is limited and i get "string exceeds 1000 characters" and I don't want to raise the limit. I use it this way atm:

{{#regex:
{{#dpl:
....
}}
|%\[\[Category?(?(?=[^\[\]\{{!}}]*\{{!}})[^\[\]\{{!}}]*\{{!}}{{!}})([^\[\]]*)\]\]\n%|}}

I don't know regex much but categories including : still slip through it, e.g. Foo: bar > [[Category:Foo: bar]]. Can you help on this? Thanks ;) --Subfader 10:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Escuse my dumbness. Your version of course works in {{#regex as well :) --Subfader 01:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Upcoming cache mechanism

I just found out that there is an upcoming cache mechanism. Will it make DPL faster? I really look forward to it if that's the case. I experience quite heavy loading times on pages with more than 3 different DPL statements. --Subfader 12:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably yes. I will use a separate cache for each DPL statement and the cache manager will recognize if the DPL statement on a page has changed (during editing). The whole thing is more complicated than I thought because there is a bunch of caches involved: the browser cache, an optional proxy cache on client side, an otional MW cache engine for HTML pages, the MW parser cache and (of course) the DPL cache. I will need people for testing once the first version of the DPL-cache is released. May I count on you? Gero 21:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Will of course test it. But I don't have much time before July. --Subfader 17:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Displaying subcategories like the default in wiki

Hello, I am trying to display the subcategories of a category in the same manner as how the wiki does it automatically by default. (i.e. link ->see the subcategories section). Is it possible to get that kind of format in DPL? If no, any other way to do so would be appreciated! (I tried to find that code within the mediawiki but I don't know where it's buried...)Casshyr

You mean the [+] in general (here) or to display the subcats of a cat on e.g. an article (here)? But I think if you made it to end up here you must mean the latter :D --Subfader 00:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! However it isn't what I was after (sorry I wasn't clear). Here's a better link that shows more of what I am after: link2. In that link, I like how the subcategories are organized into multiple columns and so far the examples I have explored on DPL only have single column, and if I try using 'mode=category', it only outputs the articles and not the subcategories themselves. I am more interested in showing the subcategories. Thanks! Casshyr

You still didn't were clear. In your example only the articles are sorted into columns. The subcat section has only 1 coulmn. But you surely mean the groups wit the starting letter A, M, P. No idea how to output that in DPL. --Subfader 23:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Pages with DPL code should not "use" the results or "link from" them

Ok I have checked all options but I simply can't get it working that a page using DPL code is not listed in "What links here" and "File links" on image pages. I tried eliminate and reset for images and links, but still Image:Bob Ross.gif lists the DPL pages resulting this image. Actually only Muha Test and Muha Test 2 really use them and only this FAQ page links to that image.
So what needs to be set in the DPL code to suppress those references? Furthermore, can we have a global to set in Localsettings if one never wants this since DPL lists are dynamic those references make no sense at all. --Subfader 18:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I added "reset=all' to the last query on your page and now the beackrefs are gone. I think 'eliminate' should do the same job - although it is al little more 'expensive' internally. Maybe the problem is that you did not add it to the LAST query in your article? --Gero 06:52, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I see, it's complaicted :D I tested around and now I can't reset it again your way. See Image:Placeholder.png is embedded on no page but without those resets it will not be "unused". I can't think of a list where I want this to be the case, esp since DPL is dynamic. Can't there be a global? --Subfader 07:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

linkstoexternal

What's up with linkstoexternal? There is no manual for it anymore? It works fine though: User:Subfader/External links. On my own wiki I use v1.7.7 (cos of %TOTALPAGES% bug) and it doesn't work. --Subfader 15:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

How do I select pages with numeric parameters?

My wiki uses templates with parameters like |min_age= 4 and |max_age= 12. I want to make lists of pages for a certain age: min_age < age < max_age. So pages with a min_age equal or lower than the age and a max_age equal or higher than the age. Can that be done and what is the best way to do that? --Egel 17:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:ParserFunctions#.23ifexpr: --Subfader 20:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I have found a way to do it.

the table:

<dpl>
allowcachedresults=true
uses = sjabloon:Spel
include= {spel}:minimum leeftijd:maximum leeftijd:%PAGE%
table= class="sortable wikitable",-,Spel,Minimum leeftijd,Maximum leeftijd
tablerow= ²{Spel.lijst|5|7|%%,%%,%% }²
</dpl>

the template:Spel.lijst

style= "{{#ifexpr: ({{#if: {{{3|}}}|{{{3}}}|5}} > {{{1|0}}}) or ({{{2|0}}} > {{#if:{{{4|}}}|{{{4}}}|99}})|display:none|}}"|[[{{{5}}}]]
|style="{{#ifexpr: ({{#if: {{{3|}}}|{{{3}}}|5}} > {{{1|0}}}) or ({{{2|0}}} > {{#if:{{{4|}}}|{{{4}}}|99}})|display:none|}}"|{{{3|}}}
|style="{{#ifexpr: ({{#if: {{{3|}}}|{{{3}}}|5}} > {{{1|0}}}) or ({{{2|0}}} > {{#if:{{{4|}}}|{{{4}}}|99}})|display:none|}}"|{{{4|}}}

Empty parameters are not really empty so I needed to do {{#if: {{{3|}}}|{{{3}}}|5}} in stead of {{{3|5}}}. I didn't find a way to change the style of a row in one go so had to do it cel by cel. Can I do this in a more simple way? --Egel 12:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Params not really empty: what do they contain? Try #iferror. Works if a param reads text while being compared to a number. --Subfader 14:54, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that DPL adds whitespace characters (space, newline, etc) to (empty) params, after that the params are not empty enough to trigger the default value. If have tried #iferror, you will get a longer and more complicated code.--Egel 18:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Did you have a look at the includematch command? I think it is perfectly suited for your problem. It allows you to filter output by a regular expression - a numerical range of values would have to be translated to an OR-expression like (9|10|11) or to a range expression like [567]. The advantage is that you will only get the results you want, so you do not have to make unwanted resuklt lines invisible. Gero 19:19, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I hoped I could use the first piece of code as a template or with the Call extension, so something like {{{start}}|{{{end}}} instead of fixed numbers. Has anybody an idea how I could do that? --Egel 18:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I hope that I can help to find an elegant solution. Please add a few demo pages to this wiki and then show us the query you came up with and the result it produces. Maybe it is possible to produce the same result with less code (this is always a goal worth thinking about). If you can demonstrate where DPL adds whitespaces I may be able to eliminate that (or to explain why I think it is necessary..) Gero 22:18, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Define DPL Cache time period?

Is it possible to define a time period after which the cache should be refreshed? E.g. user clicks, dpl checks how old the chache file is, if the difference to now larger than [definition] run the query and update the cache file. Cos atm I can't think of a DPL code for my wiki where I'd use cache since the results may be a few days old. but with defining 30 mins only it could be fresh data and save ressources. But I guess you don't have much influence on the MW cache? --Subfader 00:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

---

yes, the command dplcacheperiod (see the manual) allows you to set the number of seconds. For one day (default) you would write 84400, for five days it would be around 400000 etc.

If you want to have less than the default period of the MW parser cache (usually 1 day) there is a trick: define the page with your query as 'volatile' (which is the default normally; it can be explicitly set by allowcachedresults=false) and then set dplcacheperiod to a value of 2000 (e.g.).

MW will treat the page as dynamic, but DPL will use its cache so that no database access will happen within the cache period.

The only problem with this approach is that MW must render the result page each time the page is called. DPL does NOT do a recalculation within the dplcacheperiod, so the time spent within DPL should be below 10 msecs. But the MW engine has to translate the wiki text which DPL has fetched from its cache to HTML every time. Normally this is quite fast, but if the DPL result is huge and especially if it contains a lot of wiki links' all the links must be checked - which can take some time (depending on machine size)

Gero 12:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the detailed info. The trick would work as desired. I don't use any cache atm anyway so if the wiki page itself stays uncached and the only difference is that the dpl result is cached (most of the time), then everything it's perfect. Thinking about it I may see the next problem: Is it possible to cache DPL result but not wiki pages? Excuse my cache noob questions. --Subfader 13:25, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

This is exactly what happens if your page is 'dynamic'! Wiki code (and other extensions) will be parsed every time. Only DPL bypasses its normal work by accessing its own cache. You can test this if you EDIT a page which contains a DPL statement using the dplcache. As long as you do NOT touch the DPL statement you can make other changes in the wiki source. After saving the article you should still get the old cached result as long as the dplcacheperiod has not expired.

BTW: There is a subtle problem with "UNIQ-QINU-sequences" appearing sometimes in the output of DPL when you use the dplcache. I am tracking down this problem currently. Gero 06:03, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmh, as soon as I set $wgUseFileCache = true; all wiki pages are cached to anons. But I only want DPL results to be cached (for all or just anons, no matter). --Subfader 18:18, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Article with response to DPLs query produces high load

Caching ist a nice feature it prevents heavy sever load.

I still see a problem. Heavy load if i'm editing an article and this article is referenced by a DPL query. qhat to do...

If a query in page A lists a page B as part of its result you will normally get a backlink from B to A in the database. The creation of the backlink may depend on the exact kind of output mode you are using. If you just list the articles in the standard way it will not be created, but if you generate wiki syntax in your DPL format statement you will get the backlinks. I am not sure if the backlinks slow down editing B ( I think they slow down editing A). But anyway you can prevent the backlinks from being created in the database by using reset or eliminate within the DPL query in page A. Please let me know if this solved your problem! --Gero 10:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Specifying colors to DPL table cells

This question is similar to question #1. Is it possible to specify the cell color without using conditions (ex. if statement)? I am in a situation where I KNOW what the color should be for a cell, but since the content of the cell does not determine the color, I can't use the condition code from DPL Example 003. I know wikitable is possible to do so, but for my purpose, I also need to incorporate some functions that only DPL table has. Any help is appreciated!! Note: I also tried the tablerow statement because then only made all my cells for the specified column the same color