Help:DPL

MediaWiki Handbook: Contents, Readers, Editors, Moderators, System admins +/-

DynamicPageList or DPL for short is a MediaWiki extension supporting intersections and other set operations of pages belonging to several categories.

Flavours

Two versions of dynamic page lists (DPL) exist, an older variant using tags <dynamicpagelist> plus </dynamicpagelist>, and an advanced variant using tags <dpl> plus </dpl>. A project can support none, one , or both of these two extensions, see "parser extension tags" in Special:Version.

The advanced version covers all functions of the older variant, here only the latter is explained. For further details see the descriptions in DynamicPageList and DynamicPageList2.

Operation

In essence categories are sets of related pages, created by adding [[Category:common property]] to the individual pages. In addition category pages are also ordinary pages in their first part with all features of normal pages, but their main purpose is to list all pages belonging to the category. This changes as soon as [[Category:common property]] is added or removed from one or more of the individual pages, the members of this set.

Watching the category page only tracks modifications to its first part (as for any ordinary page), but it doesn't show any additions or removals of member pages. DPLs address this missing feature, they also allow to sort member pages by various criteria where categories only offer a crude sort key or alphabetical order.

Simple DPLs start with <dynamicpagelist> followed by one or more category=name and optionally other parameter=value pairs, and they are terminated by </dynamicpagelist>. For a similar construct see inputbox.

One (first) category=name is required, and it's the base for some other attributes. Adding more category=name restricts the DPL to pages in the intersection of all specified categories.

With notcategory=name pages in that category are removed from the DPL. So for categories A, B, and C use category=A and category=B with notcategory=C for all pages in both A and B, but not C. And also not only in A, and not only in B.

Two DPLs could be used to get a kind of union, the first DPL for category A, and the second DPL for category B without A, but real unions require the advanced DPL features.

Restrictions

The attribute namespace= allows to restrict listed pages to a namespace given by its number or name. Use 0 for the main namespace.

The attribute redirects= can be exclude (default) not listing any redirects belonging to the selected categories. With include redirects are listed, and redirects=only limits the DPL to only redirects.

With count=n the DPL is limited to the first n member pages as determined by the sort order (see below). The default is a system-wide maximum, with two DPLs looking at the same set from both ends it's indirectly possible to determine if really all selected pages are shown (see below).

Output

Use suppresserrors=true to suppress error messages for an empty DPL, e.g. if the selected category doesn't exist.

The default output mode=unordered presents the DPL as unordered list, XHTML <ul>, like Wiki list markup *.

Similarly ordered results in numbered <ol> output like Wiki list markup #. Finally mode=none presents the DPL with one entry per line, terminated with <br />, roughly similar to Wiki list markup ; (semicolon).

Especially in conjunction with namespace= the attribute shownamespace=false allows to suppress the output of the namespace.

Sorting

DPLs are either sorted by the date of the addition to the first category (this is often not the date of the creation of the individual page), the default ordermethod=categoryadd, or by ordermethod=lastedit, the date of the last modification of the member pages.

Sorting can be order=descending (default, most recent first) or order=ascending, allowing to look at the same set from both ends in two DPLs (see above).

Dates

With addfirstcategorydate=true the date of the addition to the first category is shown.

Example

If the following example doesn't work where you read this page look at it on Meta.

<dynamicpagelist>
category=Reader handbook
order=ascending
ordermethod=lastedit
mode=ordered
shownamespace=false
</dynamicpagelist>

This results in a numbered list of help pages, oldest first:

1. Project
2. Redirect/expr
3. Tracking changes
4. Preferences
5. Page name
6. Related changes
7. Self link
8. Go button
9. Printable
10. Watching pages
11. صفحة الصورة
12. Redirect
13. Date formatting and linking
14. User contributions
15. Linksearch
16. Diff
17. Enhanced recent changes
18. Image page
19. Page history
20. Category
21. Downloading pages
22. Searching
23. What links here
24. Logging in
25. Special page
26. Recent changes

Another example:

<dynamicpagelist>
category=Handbook templates
notcategory=Templates using ParserFunctions
mode=none
addfirstcategorydate=true
</dynamicpagelist>

This creates a plain list with the dates of the addition to the first (here only) category:

5 February 2012: Template:-
6 January 2012: Template:H:f Help
28 October 2011: Template:H:h Help
16 June 2011: Template:MediaWiki links
20 May 2011: Template:H:h
25 April 2011: Template:H:mwg
25 April 2011: Template:Ed
9 April 2011: Template:Ill
9 April 2011: Template:H:f Hilfe
9 April 2011: Template:H:f Помощь
9 April 2011: Template:H:f Aiuto
9 April 2011: Template:H:f NL Help
9 April 2011: Template:H:f Aide
9 April 2011: Template:H:f Hjelp
9 April 2011: Template:H:f ヘルプ
9 April 2011: Template:H:f مساعدة
9 April 2011: Template:H:f 說明
9 April 2011: Template:Ph:H:f Ndihmë
9 April 2011: Template:H:f Ndihmë
9 April 2011: Template:H:h 說明
29 March 2011: Template:H:f Trợ giúp
27 March 2011: Template:Editor toc
16 March 2011: Template:H:f
15 February 2011: Template:Ph:MediaWiki help policy
2 February 2011: Template:Fdnw
2 February 2011: Template:Fd
3 March 2010: Template:Editor toc pt
1 March 2009: Template:Ph:Contents/pt-br
1 March 2009: Template:جم القارئ
19 March 2008: Template:H:h Aide
19 December 2007: Template:Wikilink syntax tbl
17 December 2007: Template:MediaWiki links ms
8 November 2007: Template:Xpdn
26 October 2007: Template:मिडियाविकि दूवे
31 July 2007: Template:MediaWiki links/zh-hant
31 July 2007: Template:System admin toc/zh-hant
31 July 2007: Template:Moderator toc/zh-hant
31 July 2007: Template:Editor toc/zh-hant
31 July 2007: Template:Reader toc/zh-hant
12 July 2007: Template:MediaWiki links/ar
19 June 2007: Template:EdML
9 June 2007: Help talk:Template/onlyinclude demo
9 June 2007: Help:Template/onlyinclude demo
9 June 2007: Template:H:htest
9 June 2007: Template:H:h Template
9 June 2007: Template:Reader toc ja
22 March 2007: Template:Помощь:System admin toc
18 March 2007: Template:Ediu
2 March 2007: Template:Помощь:Editor toc
15 February 2007: Template:Timd
8 February 2007: Template:H:Language-dependent variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Miscellaneous variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Position variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Size variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Modifier variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Formatting variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Namespace variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Statistics variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Section variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Local time variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Current time variables
8 February 2007: Template:H:Page name variables
25 January 2007: Template:MediaWiki linky
23 January 2007: Template:MediaWiki връзки
3 January 2007: Template:Edi
3 December 2006: Template:MediaWiki links/Ru
9 November 2006: Template:MediaWiki links/tr
6 October 2006: User:AaronPeterson/css play
3 September 2006: Template:MediaWiki nyje
3 September 2006: Template:Redaktuesi toc
3 September 2006: Template:Lexuesi toc
31 August 2006: Template:Kazalo za skrbnike
31 August 2006: Template:Ph:Vsebina
31 August 2006: Template:Povezave za MediaWiki
17 July 2006: Template:Moderator toc
28 June 2006: Template:H:f2 Template
17 June 2006: Template:H:f Template
25 May 2006: Template:Edhf
7 May 2006: Template:Ph:Page for demos in the Help namespace
29 April 2006: Template:Помощь:Reader toc
29 April 2006: Template:Modifier
29 April 2006: Template:Modif
29 April 2006: Template:Edde
29 April 2006: Template:Reader toc/zh
29 April 2006: Template:Reader toc el
29 April 2006: Template:Lezer inhoud
29 April 2006: Template:H-langs:
29 April 2006: Template:Amministratori toc
29 April 2006: Template:System admin toc/zh
29 April 2006: Template:Помощь:Moderator toc
29 April 2006: Template:Moderator toc/zh
22 April 2006: Template:H:h NL Help
22 April 2006: Template:H:h Hjelp
22 April 2006: Template:H:l
22 April 2006: Template:H:
22 April 2006: Template:System admin toc
22 April 2006: Template:Reader toc
22 April 2006: Template:Ph:CheckUser
22 April 2006: Template:Unclear

Meta currently supports only the simple DPL.

+/-

Links to other help pages

Help contents

Meta | Wikinews | Wikipedia | Wikiquote | Wiktionary | commons: | mw: | b: | s: | mw:Manual | google

Versions of this help page (for other languages see below)

Meta | Wikinews | Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:DPL | Wikiquote | Wiktionary

What links here on Meta or from Meta | Wikipedia | MediaWiki

Reading

Go | Search | Stop words | Namespace | Page name | Section | Backlinks | Redirect | Category | Image page | Special pages | Printable version

Tracking changes

Recent changes (enhanced) | Related changes | Watching pages | Diff | Page history | Edit summary | User contributions | Minor edit | Patrolled edit

Logging in and preferences

Logging in | Preferences | User style

Editing

Starting a new page | Advanced editing | Editing FAQ | Edit toolbar | Export | Import | Shortcuts | Edit conflict | Page size

Referencing

Links | URLs | Piped links | Interwiki linking | Footnotes

Style & formatting

Wikitext examples | CSS | Reference card | HTML in wikitext | Formula | List | Table | Sorting | Colors | Images and file uploads

Fixing mistakes

Show preview | Testing | Reverting edits

Advanced functioning

Expansion | Template | Advanced templates | Parser function | Parameter default | Variable | System message | Substitution | Array | Calculation | Embed page

Others

Special characters | Renaming (moving) a page | Talk page | Sandbox | Legal issues for editors

In other languages: English (en) [edit]