Template:Var/doc

This template is to help facilitate the displaying of variable names (in mathematics, computer source code, wikimarkup in template documentation, metasyntactic variables, etc.) with the semantically correct <var>…</var> tags, which also renders the variable in italics, as is customary. This method is preferred to simply italicizing for many reasons, including accessibility, separation of presentation and content, semantic Web, and metadata; In wikipedia:XHTML and wikipedia:HTML, the element has semantic meaning, while simple italicization does not. This template provides a tiny hint of wikipedia:kerning to compensate for the italicization and enhance readability.

"Variable" in this sense may include arbitrary or unknown names or terms, examples of human input, arithmetical variables in equations, etc. This template (and the underlying XHTML) are generally not used if MediaWiki's <math>…</math> tags (or any other stand-alone mathematical markup) are being used.

Example

Template:Tlx

outputs the following HTML:

<var>username</var>

which renders as:

username

Note that on the screen or in print, this renders as simple italicization, as does ''username'' (using pairs of apostrophes) or <i>username</i> (using HTML), yet it carries more semantic meaning than either of these methods.

At times, you may wish to use a serif font. This is especially true when attempting to render single-letter variables like "I" (upper-case "i") and "l" (lower-case "L"), since they are nearly indistinguishable (if at all). In such situations, use the Template:Tlx template instead of Template:Tl, to make them more distinguishable, like these serif examples: Template:Var serif, Template:Var serif.

More examples

Markup	Renders as
The HTML code: : {{tag|var|content=username}} renders as: : {{var|username}}	The HTML code: <var>username</var> renders as: username
The commandline should read: % {{kbd|1=ssh {{var|hostname}}}}<br />(where {{var|hostname}} is the IP address or ...)<br />If it is correct, press <kbd>Enter</kbd>.	The commandline should read: % ssh hostname (where hostname is the IP address or ...) If it is correct, press ↵ Enter.
in this equation, let {{var|x}}{{=}}1 and {{var|y}}{{=}}120 ...	in this equation, let x=1 and y=120 ...
{{para|accessdate|{{var|todays_date}}}}	|accessdate=todays_date