View source for Help:Extension:Cite

The {{mediawiki|Extension:Cite|Cite extension}} has the ability to detect errors. This page documents the error messages and provides an understanding of the problem and solutions.

==Overview==
{{mediawiki|Extension:Cite/Cite.php|Cite extension}} is the software extension for the footnotes system. Two HTML-style tags are used to define and show the references.

;{{tag|ref|open}}
Single use footnotes are defined by enclosing content within {{tag|ref}}:
:{{tag|ref|content=''content''}}

A footnote used multiple times may be defined with a name:
:{{tag|1=ref name="foo"|2=open}}''content''{{tag|ref|close}}

To invoke a named footnote:
:{{tag|1=ref name="foo"|2=single}}

Footnotes may be defined in groups:
:{{tag|1=ref group="foo"|2=open}}''content''{{tag|ref|close}}

Names and groups may not be a numeric integer. The quotes are optional unless the name includes a space, punctuation or other mark. It is recommended that names be kept simple and restricted to the ASCII character set.

;{{tag|references|single}}
To display the reference list, after all of the {{tag|ref}} tags, include:
:{{tag|references|single}}

To display footnoted defined in a group. include:
:{{tag|1=references group="foo"|2=single}}

==Error messages==

The messages will show as <strong class=error>bold red</strong>.

{| class="wikitable"
! Message !! Problem !! Solution
|-
! colspan="3" | '''Messages in the body of the article'''
|- id="ref-no-input"
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error ref no input}}
| There is no content between the {{tag|ref}} tags.
| Either put content between the {{tag|ref|open}} tags ({{tag|ref|content=''content''}}), or (if you're reusing a named reference that's been defined elsewhere in the article) use a single tag {{tag|ref|single|params=name="''ref_name''"}}.
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error ref no key}}
| A named reference has a malformed name.
| This is produced by a construct like {{tag|ref|single}}, which makes no sense.  As above, either create a full reference ({{tag|ref|content=''content''}}) or give the tag a name ({{tag|ref|single|params=name="''ref_name''"}}).
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error ref too many keys}}
| A named {{tag|ref|open}} tag has too many parameters
| You can only specify two parameters, <tt>name=</tt> and <tt>group=</tt>.  You can't, for instance, format a reference with {{tag|ref|params=style="color:red;"|content=''content''}}, or give it an id.
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error ref numeric key}}
| The name of the reference is a pure number. To avoid naming conflicts (as unnamed references are automatically assigned numbers as names) this is not allowed.
| Rename the reference to contain at least one letter (eg {{tag|ref|single|params=name="''foo''"}} instead of {{tag|ref|single|params=name="''123''"}}). It's good practice to give references meaningful names anyway. Make sure that when changing the name you update ''all'' the tags that refer to that reference!
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error included ref}}
| A reference is missing the closing {{tag|ref|close}}.
| Make sure that you are either using a closed pair of tags ({{tag|ref|content=''content''}}), or one single tag with a forward slash at the end to mark it as a single tag ({{tag|ref|single}})
|-
! colspan="3" | '''Messages at the end of the article'''
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references no text|foo}}
| A single ref tag named "foo" ({{tag|ref|single|params=name="foo"}}) was invoked, but there is no full reference named "foo" ({{tag|ref|content=''content''|params=name="foo"}}) from which to get the reference text.
| You may have misspelt the reference name, or used special characters that ''look'' the same but are actually different.  For instance, {{tag|ref|params=name="foo-bar"|content=''content''}} and {{tag|ref|single|params=name="foo–bar"}} are ''not'' the same: one contains a hyphen while the other uses an ndash. To avoid this sort of error, try to stick to the characters available on the standard keyboard. Alternatively, the full reference may have been removed from the article with other content.  In this case the text of the reference will be available in the page history, and you can convert the single {{tag|ref|single}} tag into a full reference.
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid input}}
| The {{tag|references|single}} tag is malformed.
| rowspan="3" | You need to ensure that the {{tag|references|single}} tag is properly formed.
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid parameters}}
| Parameters such as <tt>style=</tt> or <tt>id=</tt> were passed to the {{tag|references|single}} tag.
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid parameters group}}
| The {{tag|references|single}} tag is malformed.
|- id="refs-without-references"
| rowspan="3" | Cite error: {{tag|ref|open}} tags exist, but no {{tag|references|single}} tag was found
| The {{tag|references|single}} tag was not included at the end of the article.
| Add the {{tag|references|single}} tag at the bottom of the article, below the last set of {{para|ref}} tags.
|-
| The {{tag|ref|open}} tag immediately before {{tag|references|single}} does not have a closing {{tag|ref|close}}.
| Fix the {{tag|ref|open}} tag as explained [[#ref-no-input|above]]
|-
| There are {{tag|ref}} tags after {{tag|references|single}}.
| Move the {{tag|references|single}} tag (or the {{tlx|reflist}} template) to below the last reference.
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references no backlink label}}
| A named reference was used more than 702 times, thereby exhausting the list of available labels ("a", "b"... "aa", "ab"... "zy", "zz"). 
| It should probably never be necessary to cite one source this many times. Consider whether some cites can be combined or removed, or edit [[{{ns:MediaWiki}}:Cite references link many format backlink labels]] to add additional labels (maybe "aaa", "aab", etc).
|-
| rowspan="3" | {{MediaWiki:Cite error group refs without references}}
| The group parameter was used in a reference, but the corresponding {{tag|references|single}} tag was not included with a group parameter
| Make sure that there is a {{tag|references|single}} tag on the page with the appropriate {{para|group}} parameter set.
|-
| The reference immediately before {{tag|references|single}} does not have a closing {{tag|ref|close}}.
| rowspan="2" | Fix as for normal {{tag|references|single}} tags as explained [[#refs-without-references|above]].
|-
| There are {{tag|ref}} tags using a group after {{tag|references|single}}.
|-
! colspan="3" | '''Other messages'''
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error key str invalid}}
| rowspan="2" | Internal software error.
| rowspan="2" | These messages should never occur.  If you see them in articles, please {{mediawiki|Communication|contact the MediaWiki developers}}, who may be able to resolve the situation.
|-
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error stack invalid input}}
|}

==Technical information==

Internal messages are generated by the {{mediawiki|Extension:Cite/Cite.php|Cite.php}} extension and shown as a MediaWiki message. See the Parser hooks section of [[Special:Version]] for the installed version of Cite.php. These messages are in the MediaWiki namespace and can be modified only by admins.

{| class="wikitable"
! Cite.php internal message !! MediaWiki message
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error|Cite error]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error key str invalid|Cite error key str invalid]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error key str invalid}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error ref no input| Cite error ref no input]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error ref no input}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error ref no key|Cite error ref no key]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error ref no key}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error ref numeric key|Cite error ref numeric key]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error ref numeric key}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error ref too many keys|Cite error ref too many keys]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error ref too many keys}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid input|Cite error references invalid input]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid input}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid parameters|Cite error references invalid parameters]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid parameters}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid parameters group|Cite error references invalid parameters group]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid parameters group}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error references no backlink label|Cite error references no backlink label]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references no backlink label}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite references link many format backlink labels|Cite references link many format backlink labels]]
| ''This is a list of the backlink labels used in the reference list, currently from a to zz''
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error references no text|Cite error references no text]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error references no text}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error included ref|Cite error included ref]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error included ref}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error stack invalid input|Cite error stack invalid input]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error stack invalid input}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error refs without references|Cite error refs without references]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error stack invalid input}}
|-
| [[MediaWiki:Cite error group refs without references|Cite error group refs without references]]
| {{MediaWiki:Cite error group refs without references}}
|}

[[Category:Extension help]]
[[Category:Imported help]]