View source for Template:Void/doc

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{{Template shortcut|^|X0|Nul|',_'|Null}}
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This template does nothing visually. Technically, it throws away its parameters and outputs the null string.

It is useful for programming advanced templates, and is often used within a template to the right of an equals sign. It may also be used in a template to disambiguate parsing of braces.

It can also be used to temporarily disable code. Unlike "[[commenting out]]" using [[HTML comment|HTML]] <code><nowiki><!-- --></nowiki></code>, it nests. This means that <code><nowiki>{{void|foo {{void|bar}} baz}}</nowiki></code> is valid, whereas <code><nowiki><!-- foo <!-- bar --> baz --></nowiki></code> will produce <code><!-- foo <!-- bar --> baz --></code>.

It provides a particularly concise way of temporarily disabling ''templates'', by prefixing the template name with <code>^|</code>, making the template name becomes the (ignored) first unnamed parameter. For example, suppose you have a page {{tlx|Under construction}} for several days, and wish to change that to {{tlx|In use}} during active editing sessions. Rather than delete the unused template, you can leave both templates in the wikitext and change from <code><nowiki>{{^|In use|...}}{{Under construction|...}}</nowiki></code> to <code><nowiki>{{In use|...}}{{^|Under construction|...}}</nowiki></code>.

Another possible application would be to temporarily disable an infobox on an article page while a problem with the infobox template itself is resolved.

A deeper no-op is <code><nowiki>{{subst:void|foobar}}</nowiki></code> or <code><nowiki>{{subst:^|foobar}}</nowiki></code>. It disappears completely upon saving.

==Alternatives==
{{Tl|Null}} also redirects here. It is also possible to use <code><nowiki>{{ns:0}}</nowiki></code>, the empty/void/null string for the main [[m:Help:Namespace|namespace]].

It can be used in place of <code><nowiki><nowiki/></nowiki></code> to break character sequence parsing, for example <code><nowiki>{{nowrap|{''a''}{{null}}}}</nowiki></code> to force the first closing brace to be treated as part of the template parameter instead of as the end of the template expression.

==TemplateData==
{{TemplateData header}}
<!--<TemplateData>-->
<syntaxhighlight lang="JSON">
{"description":"A template to show the null string, i.e. nothing. Any parameters are accepted and ignored.","params":{}}</syntaxhighlight>
<!--</TemplateData>-->

==See also==
* [[Template:Nothing]] – a template that displays an invisible HTML tag
* [[Template:Text]] – a template that just displays its first parameter unchanged.

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[[Category:Wikipedia formatting and function templates]]
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