Template:Refn

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

Purpose

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

Names for footnotes and groups must follow these rules:

• Names are case-sensitive. Please do not use raNdOM capitalization.
• Names must not be purely numeric; the software will accept something like ":31337" (which is punctuation plus a number), but it will ignore "31337" (purely numeric).
• Names should have semantic value, so that they can be more easily distinguished from each other by human editors who are looking at the wikitext. This means that ref names like "Nguyen 2010" are preferred to names like ":31337".
• Names must be unique. You may not use the same name to define different groups or footnotes. Try to avoid picking a name that someone else is likely to choose for a new citation, such as ":0" or "NYT".
• Please consider keeping reference names short, simple, and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals. If spaces are used, the following technical restrictions become relevant:
  • Quotation marks are preferred but optional if the only characters used are letters A–Z, a–z, digits 0–9, and the symbols !$%&()*,-.:;<@[]^_`{|}~. That is, all printable ASCII characters except #"'/=<>?\ and space.
  • Inclusion of any other characters, including spaces, requires that the reference name be enclosed in quotes; for example, name="John Smith". But quote-enclosed reference names may not include a less-than sign (<) or a double straight quote symbol ("), which may however be included by escaping as < and " respectively.
  • The quote marks must be the standard, straight, double quotation marks ("); curly or other quotes will be parsed as part of the reference name.
• You may optionally provide reference names even when the reference name is not required. This makes later re-use of the sourced reference easier.

Examples

Footnotes with citations

Markup	Renders as
An example.{{refn|group=note|name=first|A note.<ref>An included reference.</ref>}} Another example.{{refn|group=note|Another note.<ref>Another included reference.</ref>}} A third example.{{refn|group=note|The third note.<ref>The reference in the third note.</ref>}} Repeating the first example.{{refn|group=note|name=first}} ==Notes== {{reflist|group=note}} ==References== {{reflist}}	An example. Another example. A third example. Repeating the first example. Notes References

Other forms of citations

Markup	Renders as
An example.{{refn|group=note|name=first|A note.<ref>The reference in the first note.</ref>}} Another example.{{refn|name=ref|Another reference, but without a note.}} A third example.{{refn|group=note|A second note.<ref>The reference in the second note.</ref>}} Repeating the first example.{{refn|group=note|name=first}} Repeating the second example.{{refn|name=ref}} A fourth example with citation templates.{{refn|name=harv|{{cite book|author=Smith|title=The Solar System|year=2005|mode=cs2}}, quoted in {{harvnb|Jones|2020|p=25}}.}} ==Notes== {{reflist|group=note}} ==References== {{reflist}}	An example. Another example. A third example. Repeating the first example. Repeating the second example. A fourth example with citation templates. Notes References

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
<ref>{{cite web |access-date={{Subst:TODAY}} |title=Languages |work=Apache HTTP Server |agency=Ohloh |publisher= Black Duck Software |url=https://www.ohloh.net/p/apache/analyses/latest/languages_summary}}</ref> {{reflist}}
{{refn|{{cite web |access-date={{Subst:TODAY}} |title=Languages |work=Apache HTTP Server |agency=Ohloh |publisher= Black Duck Software |url=https://www.ohloh.net/p/apache/analyses/latest/languages_summary}}}} {{reflist}}

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
{{refn|1+1=2}}
{{refn|1= 1+1=2}}

{{#section:Help:footnotes|pregroup}}

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)

Wikipedia referencing
Policies and guidelines
Verifiability No original research Biographies of living persons Reliable sources Medicine Citing sources Scientific citations
General advice
Citation needed Combining sources Offline sources Referencing styles
Citing sources
Citation Style 1 Citation Style 2 Citation Style Vancouver Bluebook Comics Citation templates
Inline citations
Footnotes Punctuation and footnotes Shortened footnotes Nesting footnotes
Help for beginners
Reference-tags Citations quick reference Introduction to referencing Referencing with citation templates Referencing without using templates Referencing dos and don'ts Citing Wikipedia
Advanced help
Cite link labels Cite errors Citation merging (bundling) Cite messages Converting between references formats Reference display customization References and page numbers Guidance on source reviewing at FAC
Footnote templates
Citation Style documentation Multiple references {{Reflist}} {{Refbegin}}
Find references
How to find sources Bibliographies Wikipedia Library Resource Exchange Reference Desk Book Sources Free newspaper sources
Citation tools (External links)
Citer Biomedical cite Citation bot MakeRef Refill WayBack

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

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Refn/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.