Help:Pipe trick

The pipe trick uses the pipe character ("") to save typing the label of a piped link for several kinds of wiki links. This can avoid potentially making an error while typing the label.

When the last character of a link is the pipe character, the pipe trick will automatically generate the text that displays for that link. It removes the parenthesized part of the link title, but it also processes commas in the title, and namespace prefixes. The generated text is saved with the rest of the page's wiki markup.

The pipe trick doesn't work in edit summaries, within tags, or links to sections – see below.

Combinations
The basic rule when the pipe trick is used is that an (initial) namespace prefix, a final part beginning with a comma, or a final parenthesis (usually intended for disambiguation) is suppressed in the rendering of the link. The rendered text is case neutral and so should be entered precisely as the user wishes it to appear in the article. In case of combinations of suppressible parts, the following rules apply:

{| class="wikitable"
 * style="vertical-align: top; padding: 1em;" |
 * style="vertical-align: top; padding: 1em;" |

Commas beat parentheses
If the link name involves both one or more commas and a final parenthesis, only the parenthesis is suppressed:
 * Yours, Mine and Ours (1968 film)

is shown on the page as:
 * Yours, Mine and Ours


 * style="vertical-align: top; padding: 1em;" |

Only one prefix suppressed
If there are several prefixes, which can occur, for example, for an interlanguage link, only the first is suppressed:
 * es:TechInfoDepot:Políticas

is rendered as:
 * TechInfoDepot:Políticas


 * style="vertical-align: top; padding: 1em;" |
 * style="vertical-align: top; padding: 1em;" |

Only the first comma
If there are several commas, only the part up to the first comma is shown:
 * Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo

results in:
 * Il Buono


 * style="vertical-align: top; padding: 1em;" |

Other combinations
For the rest, if there is both an initial part and a final part that can be omitted, both are suppressed:
 * TechInfoDepot:Manual of Style (Persian)

produces:
 * Manual of Style


 * }

Where it doesn't work
Where the pipe trick doesn't work, the link must be written out in full manually.

&lt;ref&gt; footnotes and &lt;gallery&gt; tags
The trick does not work when enclosing between "ref" tags or gallery tags.

renders in the references list (generated by the tag) as:

Edit summaries
The trick does not work in edit summaries.


 * /* Edit summaries and the pipe trick */ as tested in WP:SAND

renders in the edit history as:
 * ( →Edit summaries and the pipe trick: as tested in WP:SAND)

Section links
The pipe trick does not work on section links, and in general it does not work for links to anchors (links that use a # sign). For example,
 * TechInfoDepot:Verifiability

does not give you any wikilink. See 845, ", /bar should be equivalent to foo, bar ".

Slash trick
You can achieve a similar effect for subpages by adding a slash.


 * /Subpage/

generates:
 * /Subpage/

Unlike the pipe trick, though, the slash trick is not expanded in the saved wiki markup.

This trick only works in namespaces where subpages are enabled.

Reverse pipe trick
If the title of the article you are editing includes a parenthesized term or a comma, placing a pipe at the start of a link will append that parenthesized text to the link target, but not display it.

For example, if the link
 * Agonizer

were placed in Agonist (disambiguation), the link would be expanded to
 * Agonizer

Placing a pipe at the start of a link to an article that has no parentheses or comma in its title will have no effect.

Alternatives
Some templates are available as alternatives to using the trick for linking. (shortcut: u)