Template:Refname rules
Revision as of 05:41, 24 April 2019 by test>Anomalocaris (Amplify on the recent edit of WhatamIdoing: insert this: However, names like ":1" should be generally be avoided (see next bullet).)
Names for footnotes and groups must follow these rules:
- Names are case-sensitive.
- Names must not be purely numeric; the software will accept something like ":1" (which is punctuation plus a number), but it will ignore "1" (purely numeric). However, names like ":1" should be generally be avoided (see next bullet).
- Names should have semantic value, so that they can be more easily distinguished from each other by human editors.
- Names must be unique—you may not use the same name to define different groups or footnotes.
- Please consider keeping reference names simple and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals. Failing that, including if spaces are used, the following technical restrictions become relevant:
- Quotation marks are optional if the only characters used are letters
A–Z
,a–z
, digits0–9
, and the symbols!$%&()*,-.:;<@[]^_`{|}~
. That is, all printable ASCII characters except#"'/=>?\
. - Inclusion of any other characters, including spaces, requires that the reference name be enclosed in quotes; for example,
name="John Smith"
. - The quote marks must be the standard straight keyboard marks (
"
); curly or other quotes will be parsed as part of the reference name. - Quote-enclosed reference names may not include a less-than sign (
<
) or a double straight quote symbol ("
). These may be escaped with<
and"
, respectively.
- Quotation marks are optional if the only characters used are letters
- You may optionally provide reference names even when the reference name is not required. This makes later re-use of the sourced reference easier.

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