Template:Resolve category redirect/sandbox

This is the template sandbox page for Template:Resolve category redirect (diff).
See also the companion subpage for test cases.

Template documentation[view] [edit] [history] [purge]

This template is used in MediaWiki:Babel-category-override, and on approximately 773,000 pages, or roughly 1% of all pages.
Changes to it can cause immediate changes to the Wikipedia user interface.
To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Please discuss changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This template uses Lua:

Resolves a soft category redirect.

It takes one parameter, which is the name of a category. It returns that category name, unless the category exists and is a {{category redirect}} ... when it returns the name of the redirect target.

Usage

{{Resolve category redirect|categoryname}}

Examples

Category exists and is not redirected: Category:1970s

{{Resolve category redirect|1970s}} → 1970s
{{Resolve category redirect|Category:1970s}} → Category:1970s

Category exists and is a soft redirect: Category:Mosques completed in the 19th century

{{Resolve category redirect|Mosques completed in the 19th century}} → 19th-century mosques
{{Resolve category redirect|Category:Mosques completed in the 19th century}} → 19th-century mosques

Category exists and is a soft redirect: Category:Organisations

{{Resolve category redirect|Organisations}} → Organizations
{{Resolve category redirect|Category:Organisations}} → Organizations

Non-existent category: Category:Colourless green things

{{Resolve category redirect|Colourless green things}} → Colourless green things
{{Resolve category redirect|Category:Colourless green things}} → Category:Colourless green things

Templates

Do not use templates in the target name.

{{Resolve category redirect}} cannot expand any templates in the target name (yet), and the characters { and } can crash the module, so no attempt is made to resolve any redirect where the target includes those characters. The character ! is now allowed (see testcases).

Example

Category:1781 in Mexico‎ contained {{category redirect|{{title year}} in New Spain}} which cannot be resolved. To be safe, {{Resolve category redirect|1781 in Mexico‎}} simply returned 1781 in Mexico‎.
The above example has since been changed to {{category redirect|1781 in New Spain}}, which can be resolved.

Avoiding deletion of the redirected page

It is helpful to also add {{R from category navigation}} or {{R from template-generated category}} (as appropriate) to indicate that the redirect is required for navigation between category pages. See those template page for full syntax. This also hides a speedy deletion button that is otherwise displayed to administrators.