Module:Archive list/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Module:Archive list.
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original module page.

This Lua module is used on approximately 68,000 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the module's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own module sandbox. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

Module:Archive list can be applied to any talk page or discussion archive, and will return links to all the numbered archives of that page or its parent page. By default the module uses the naming convention specified at WP:ARCHIVE, Talk:PAGENAME/Archive 1, with a capital A, a space before the number, and no leading zeros. This module should not usually be substituted – that way, the list of links will update itself whenever a new numbered archive is added. For ease of access, {{archive list}} can be used.

This module is used in {{Archives}} to produce a box of numbered archive links without entering them all manually.

Usage

Main

The main function. Returns a list of archive links.

{{#invoke:Archive list|main
| root                = 
| links               = 
| nobr                = 
| prefix              = 
| prefixspace         = 
| linkprefix          = 
| linkprefixspace     = 
| sep                 = 
| linesep             = 
| start               = 
| max                 = 
| auto                =
| leavefirstcellblank =
}}

Count

The count function. Returns the number of the most recent archive.

{{#invoke:Archive list|count
| root            = 
| prefix          = 
| prefixspace     = 
}}

Parameters

Valid parameters are:

root = <root> - use this to specify a root other than that of the page from which the template is transcluded.
links = # - the number of links to display per line. The default is 10.
nobr = yes - set this to yes to remove all line breaks. This parameter cannot be used in conjunction with |links=.
prefix = <prefix> - a custom prefix for the archives, without the number. The default is "Archive ".
prefixspace = yes - adds a space between the prefix and the archive number for prefixes specified with |prefix=.
linkprefix = <linkprefix> - a custom prefix for the display links, without the number. The default is blank. If auto=long, use 'none' to have it blank.
prefixspace = yes - adds a space between the link prefix and the archive number for prefixes specified with |linkprefix=.
sep = <sep> - the separator for archive links. The default value is the comma separator for the language set in your preferences: ", ". If this is set to either dot ( · ), pipe ( | ), comma (, ), or tpt-languages (⧼tpt-languages-separator⧽), then it uses that separator as specified for your default language. If it is any other value, that value is used as it is. If this module is called from #invoke then whitespace is stripped, but if called from another module then whitespace is preserved. This allows for other modules to use this module to create wikitables, etc. If called from #invoke, the whitespace problem can be worked around by using   (for spaces) and <br /> (for new lines).
linesep = <linesep> - the separator for lines of archive links. The possible input values are the same as for the |sep= parameter, and the default separator text is <br />. How often the value is displayed depends on the value of |links=.
start = # - the archive number to start listing archives from. This must be smaller than the largest archive number, or |max= if it is specified.
max = # - the largest archive number to list. This overrides the automatic detection of archive page numbers.
auto = long - outputs as a table. Changes default value of links to 3 and linkprefix to 'Archive '.
leavefirstcellblank = yes - leave the first cell of the first row empty, so that each row starts on a multiple of the number of links per line. In other words, this aligns the first column to contain round numbers (multiples of the links param). This can make long archive lists easier to read. This option is off by default for compatibility.

Limitations

The old {{archive list}} template was limited to detecting 200 archives. This module has no such limitation. However, at very high numbers of archives this module might reach the expensive function call limit. On a page with no other templates that call expensive functions, this module should be able to output 400,000+ archive links. On pages with other templates that make expensive function calls, the module may fail sooner.