Criteria for page selection

Manual	Parameters	Criteria for page selection

Articles can be selected based on:

The category/categories they are assigned to, or the number of categories.
Their namespace.
Their references/links to and from other articles.
Their usage of templates.
The author/editor of articles.
Their titles.
Their character (redirect or normal article).
Their revision date.

Article result counts can be restricted to a certain limit:

Via configuration settings within the DPL3 source.
Via a specific parameter for a given invocation of DPL3.

A subset of results can be selected by random.

Important:

Care to select the most appropriately narrow selection criteria is ideal to avoid large result sets; for testing and display purposes, the count parameter can also be used.
Before applying format, ordering, or adjusting output volume, it is generally advised to view page selection results first (to confirm it works as expected).

Select articles based on CATEGORY

categorymatch

categorymatch	Selects articles based on categories. One or more patterns can be specified (SQL LIKE); a page is selected if at least one of its categories matches at least one of the patterns.

Syntax:
categorymatch=1st category pattern¦...

% is used to denote "any number of any characters".

Example:
This lists pages belonging to categories that begin or end in "Spending", limited to a count of three results, or it outputs "No results found" if none are found.

{{#dpl:
|categorymatch=%Spending%
|noresultsfooter=No results found
|count=3
}}

categoryregexp

categoryregexp	Selects pages with a category matching a regular expression.

The complete text behind "categoryregexp" is taken as one argument and used in a SQL REGEXP clause (i.e., | characters can be used as a normal part of the regexp).

Note: If you are not familiar with regular expressions or do not know the specifics of Perl regexp used in PHP, it may be helpful to see:

The PHP manual and W3Schools for more information.
RegExr for testing regular expressions.

notcategory

notcategory	Much like the `category` parameter, but requires that every page listed not be in a particular category. Unlike in the `category` parameter, categories cannot be combined using logical OR, only one criterion can be specified per line.

Syntax:
notcategory=category name

Example:
This lists pages in Category:Card Dragons that do not belong to either Category:Clan-Exclusive Dragons or other example categories listed in separate notcategory statements.

{{#dpl:
|category=Card Dragons
|notcategory=Clan-Exclusive Dragons
|notcategory=Limited-Time Dragons
|count=10
}}

Notes:

To use magic words in the category name, the parser function syntax method must be used.
There are some related configuration variables, also see the complete list of DynamicPageList3 configuration variables.

notcategorymatch

notcategorymatch	Works like notcategory but based on SQL LIKE.

notcategoryregexp

notcategoryregexp	Works like notcategory but based on SQL REGEXP.

Note: If you are not familiar with regular expressions or do not know the specifics of Perl regexp used in PHP, it may be helpful to see:

The PHP manual and W3Schools for more information.
RegExr for testing regular expressions.

categoriesminmax

categoriesminmax	Restricts article selection to those assigned to at least [min] categories, and/or at most to [max] categories.

Syntax:
categoriesminmax=[min],[max] where min and max are each a desired number.

Example 1:
The lists pages belonging to Category:Standard Dragons and at least 1 other category, for a total of 2 minimum as set in the min position of categoriesminmax argument syntax. Note the parameter name's ending, "minmax", provides a reminder of the order in which its arguments must be specified [min],[max]. Either parameter is optional, but their position must be held appropriately using a , comma.

{{#dpl:
|category=Standard Dragons
|categoriesminmax=2,
|count=5
}}

Example 2:
The lists articles in Category:Dragons that are only assigned to 2 other categories, for a maximum of 3 categories. The first categoriesminmax argument for minimum (or min) is left blank, meaning no minimum applies, and just the last (comma separated) argument specifying the maximum is applied. Alternatively, both a min and a max value could be specified if desired.

{{#dpl:
|category=Dragons
|categoriesminmax=,3
|count=5
}}

Select articles based on NAMESPACES

namespace

namespace	Restricts article selection to the given namespace(s).

Syntax:
namespace=1st_namespace_name¦2nd namespace_name¦3rd_namespace_name¦...

Notes:

The namespace name may be any, assuming it represents a valid namespace in the system, including custom ones, BUT no pseudo-namespace such as Media, Special which have negative namespace IDs.
The empty string is the main article namespace for example:

namespace= for pages in Main namespace only.
namespace=¦Talk or namespace=Talk¦ for Main or Talk namespace.
namespace=User¦¦Category for User, Main, or Category, etc.).

Name spaces are case-sensitive, namespace=User_talk works, but namespace=User_Talk does not.
Instead of using the title of a namespace its numeric ID can be used, although this is not recommended; DPL3 always tries to interpret the argument as a name first. So, if a user namespace is created with the title "1" (which is possible in principle) DPL3 takes this namespace if given a "1" as an argument. In this case, the "Talk" namespace (which has the numeric ID "1") cannot be specified by its number, but only by the literal "Talk".

Example:

This outputs pages that belong to Category:Template documentation subpages and that are in the Template namespace (pages prefixed with "Template:"), limited to a count of 5.

Namespaces have underscores in their proper names. Currently, to exclude a namespace containing a space such as "Help talk", an underscore must be used to replace the space. Putting a space in this example causes a different result, Help talk:Three is not displayed, which is not intended (test in sandbox to view the difference).

{{#dpl:
|category=Template documentation subpages
|namespace=Template
|count=5
}}

Example (with magic word):

This lists pages in the current (Help) namespace, limited to a count of 5.

{{#dpl:
|namespace={{NAMESPACE}}
|count=5
}}

notnamespace

notnamespace	Much like the `notcategory` parameter, but for namespaces. Restricts article selection to those not in the given namespace(s).

Syntax:
notnamespace=namespace_name

Example 1:

This lists pages from Category:Number examples that are neither in the Talk namespace nor the Help talk namespace. The results are limited to a count of three.

Namespaces have underscores in their proper names. Currently, to exclude a namespace containing a space such as Help talk, an underscore must be used to replace the space. Putting a space in this example causes different results.

{{#dpl:
|category     = Number examples
|notnamespace = Talk
|notnamespace = Help_talk
|count        = 3
}}

Example (with magic word):

This list will output pages that are neither in the Talk namespace, nor the current namespace the page is in.

{{#dpl:
|category = Number examples
|notnamespace = Talk 
|notnamespace = {{NAMESPACE}}
}}

Select articles based on LINKS

linksfrom

linksfrom	Selects articles that are referenced/linked from at least one of the specified pages.

Syntax:
linksfrom=full page name¦...'

Example:

This lists pages linked from in Nightmare Mode, that are in Category:Ancient (classification).

{{#dpl:
|category = Ancient (classification)
|linksfrom  = Nightmare Mode
|count=5
}}

Notes:

Normally linksfrom only shows existing pages. With openreferences=yes this can be changed.
The distinct parameter can be used to control the amount of output received.
The page mentioned in the DPL3 query can be retrieved via %PAGESEL% variable.

openreferences

openreferences	Extends `linksfrom` to unresolved references (non-existing articles or image links). Implicitly sets `ordermethod=none` if set to yes or missing. Most DPL3 parameters depend on the existence of a page. If `openreferences` is set, none of those parameters can be used. Examples of conflicting parameters are all parameters related to categories, revisions, authors, redirections, and some other parameters.

Syntax:

openreferences=criteria where criteria can be one of:

yes – Pages that do not exist are included – conflicts with some options; implicitly sets ordermethod=none.
missing – Only includes pages that do not exist from missing articles in the pagelinks table; conflicts with some options. Implicitly sets ordermethod=none.

This option may be useful to create a list of wanted pages (redlinks) (e.g., wanted pages for a specific namespace).

no – Pages that do not exist are excluded – (default, need not be specified).

Example:

This lists pages linked in the Apple page, regardless of whether the page(s) exist or not (though it will not include a self-reference).

{{#dpl:
|linksfrom=Apple
|openreferences=yes
}}

notlinksfrom

notlinksfrom	Selects articles that are NOT referenced/linked from any of the specified pages.

Syntax:

notlinksfrom=full page name¦...

Similar to linksfrom the {{FULLPAGENAME}} magic word could be used, to not include any pages linked to from the current page; however this generally results in errors.

linksto

linksto	Selects articles that link to at least one of the specified pages.

Syntax:

linksto=full page name¦...

Notes:

% can be used as a wildcard (SQL-LIKE expression).
If more than one criterion is specified, they act as a logical AND. In this case, the %PAGESEL% variable points to the first condition.
%PAGESEL% can be used to display the name of the page linking to the criteria specified.
If two criteria are set, and a result links to both, the result appears twice in the output.
- The distinct parameter can be used to control the amount of output received.

Example 1:

This selects pages in Category:Standard Dragons that link to other pages whose name starts with "Fairy" that are in the Main namespace (by default). To make the comparison case-insensitive, the parameter ignorecase can be used.

{{#dpl:
|category = Standard Dragons
|linksto  = Fairy%
}}

Example (with magic word):

This lists pages in Category:Standard Dragons that link to the current page, whatever it is.

{{#dpl:
|category = Standard Dragons
|linksto = {{FULLPAGENAME}}
}}

notlinksto

notlinksto	Selects articles that do NOT link to any of the specified pages.

Syntax:

notlinksto=full page name¦...

Example:

This lists pages in Category:Card Pack Dragons not linking to Category:Epic (classification) or Category:Rare (classification), limited to a count of fifteen.

{{#dpl:
|category = Card Pack Dragons
|notlinksto = Category:Epic (classification) ¦ Category:Rare (classification)
|count = 15
}}

Notes:

The implementation of this feature is not very efficient. Use with care and avoid huge result sets.
The distinct parameter can be used to control the amount of output received.

linkstoexternal

linkstoexternal	Selects articles that contain an external link that matches a given text pattern.

Syntax:

linkstoexternal=text pattern¦...

This command selects pages which contain external HTTP links that match a certain pattern. The pattern is used in SQL LIKE expression, i.e., _ and % are treated as special symbols that match any character respecting a group of arbitrary characters.

Notes:

The pattern is case-sensitive.
The pattern is matched against the whole URL. Therefore, % is required around the pattern if only part of a string is given:

linkstoexternal=%mywebpage%

If more than one linkstoexternal parameter is specified, articles must match all conditions (logical AND).
The URL of the external link can be retrieved via %EXTERNALLINK%.
See also the addexternallink parameter.

imageused

imageused	Selects articles that use a certain image.

Syntax:

imageused=image name¦...

The Namespace "File" need not be specified.

Example:

Lists pages that use the image "Red Apple Fruit With Black Background.jpeg" OR the image "Grapes on White Table.jpeg", with the result count limited to three.

{{#dpl:
|imageused = Red Apple Fruit With Black Background.jpeg ¦ Grapes on White Table.jpeg
|count=3
}}

Note: There is a variable %IMAGESEL% which contains the image name(s) used for selection.

imagecontainer

imagecontainer	Select images that are contained in one or more articles.

Syntax:

imagecontainer=page name¦...

Normally setting openreferences to true lists non-existing images, including those not housed locally, such as images used from Wikimedia Commons; however, currently this function may cause errors that prevent a page from being saved.

Example:

This statement shows images contained in the Apple article. Setting the parameter escapelinks=false causes the image to be seen directly (at full-size), rather than having the file page link listed. Setting mode=none removes the default unordered list (bullet) formatting, so the image appears without a bullet in front of it. The escapelinks and mode parameters could also be replaced by a format statement to provide greater control over formatting the output.

{{#dpl:
|imagecontainer = Apple
|escapelinks = false
|mode = none
}}

Select articles based on the use of TEMPLATES

uses

uses	Selects articles that use (transclude) at least one of the specified templates (wiki syntax: `{{...}}`).

Syntax:

uses=Template:name¦Template:...

The "Template" namespace must be specified, or other namespaces can be specified.

Example:

This lists pages that use Template:Fruit-Infobox, limited to three results using count.

{{#dpl:
|uses = Template:Fruit-Infobox
|count = 3
}}

Note: It is not possible to find pages that use two templates (e.g., Template:Foo AND Template:Bar).

notuses

notuses	Selects articles that do not use any of the specified templates. Caution: The implementation of this feature is not very efficient. Use with care and avoid huge result sets.

Syntax:

notuses=Template:name¦Template:...

Example:

This lists articles in Category:Fruit examples which do not use Template:Color, limiting the results to a count of three.

{{#dpl:
|category        = Fruit examples
|notuses         = Template:Color
|noresultsheader = \n ''No pages found''
|count           = 3
}}

usedby

usedby	Selects articles (templates) that are used (transcluded) by a specified page.

Syntax:

usedby=page

Example:

This lists pages which are included by (used on) the Apple page.

{{#dpl:
|usedby=Apple
}}

Select articles based on authors / editors

createdby

createdby	Selects articles that were created by the specified user. This is an expensive and slow function.

Syntax:

createdby=username

Notes (applies for all user related selection criteria):

User related selections can be combined. For example, pages which were not created by user1 but modified by them could be specified, or pages which were created by user1 and lastmodifiedby user2 could be specified.
Several or all versions of articles can be shown by specifying one or more of the "revision" group of parameters, like allrevisionsbefore.

notcreatedby

notcreatedby	Selects articles that were not created by the specified user. This is an expensive and slow function.

Syntax:

notcreatedby=username

Note: To avoid huge result sets, this is typically be accompanied by other selection criteria.

modifiedby

modifiedby	Selects articles that were created or at least once modified by the specified user.

Syntax:

modifiedby=username

Note: modifiedby is always a superset of createdby as the creation of a page is interpreted as its first modification.

notmodifiedby

notmodifiedby	Selects articles that were not (created or) modified by the specified user.

Syntax:

notmodifiedby=username

Note: To avoid huge result sets, this is typically be accompanied by other selection criteria.

lastmodifiedby

lastmodifiedby	Selects articles where the last modification was done by the specified user.

Syntax:

lastmodifiedby=username

notlastmodifiedby

notlastmodifiedby	Selects articles where the last modification was not done by the specified user.

Syntax:

notlastmodifiedby=username

Note: To avoid huge result sets, this is typically be accompanied by other selection criteria.

Select articles based on TITLE

There are several possibilities to select articles by their title. When the titles of matching articles are displayed later in the output list, their names can be shown in different ways: The namespace may be shown or skipped and even parts of the name can be changed. See shownamespace, replaceintitle, escapelinks and titlemaxlength for details.

title

title	Select one single page by its (namespace and) title, sets `mode=userformat` giving no output by default, and requires an `include` statement. This parameter's behavior is different from most other selection criteria, it is primarily useful for including/transcluding contents from one specific page.

Syntax:

title=pagetitle

Given its unique behavior, specifying an exact "title" makes sense if transcluding (including) contents from one specific page is desired. E.g., All content, a page section, labeled sections, or template calls of one page. Thus, DPL may serve as a more flexible alternative to Labeled Section Transclusion.

Using this parameter causes the following:

mode=userformat is automatically set, causing no output to be given by default until specified.
Some type of include= statement must be specified to get output.
- The content can be presented as-is directly from the include statement, or the output can be formatted:
  - By setting format= arguments.
  - By using other types of formatting (or a combination of compatible formatting types).
  - By specifying a surrogate template.
- Specified formatting affects if article title is displayed, is repeated, and/or if results appear separated or grouped.
  - If there is more than one section with the same name, the contents of each are displayed one after the other.
  - When content is formatted using table, by default each result with the same name appears in a separate row with a separate heading, as can be seen in the example for including page sections.
- The %SECTION% variable can be used, but only in secseparators, to retrieve page section/chapter heading text.

Example 1:

{{#dpl:
|title     = Apple
|include   = #Notes
}}

Example 2:

This selects the Apple article, which uses Template:Color on its page more than once. The include statement both includes all parameters available in Template:Color, and it passes their values to a surrogate template, Template:Color.templatevalues for formatting. The use of title is unique, it implicitly sets mode=userformat, which allows additional control over the output, and allows secseparators to be used. The first argument of secseparators sets nothing , to be displayed before each result, then its second argument sets a line break \n and four hyphens ---- (which create a horizontal rule/line). Another line break \n puts each result below that line. Without the secseparators statement, each result would appear side by side instead.

{{#dpl:
|title=Apple
|include={Color}.templatevalues
|secseparators=,\n----\n
}}

titlelt (Previously title<)

titlelt	Restrict the selection to articles with a title less or equal to a given value.

Syntax:

titlelt=string

The string given need not be a valid page title.

This parameter was standardized to titlelt and it is recommended to switch instances to the new wording. For compatibility purposes, title< continues to work.

Example 1:

This selects the article before the Chocolate Cake article in Category:Dessert examples. The format statement formats the output into a plain page title link (with no list style), the count is set to 1 to ensure only the one (the previous) page from the category is returned.

{{#dpl:
|titlelt = Chocolate Cake
|category   = Dessert examples
|format = ,[[%PAGE%|%TITLE%]]
|count   = 1
}}

Example 2:

This example creates navigation between pages in Category:Fruit examples, by combining three templates: previous, next, and navigation.

The Help:Previous template contains content similar to:

{{#dpl:
|category={{{category|}}}
|namespace=
|titlelt={{PAGENAME}}
|mode=inline
|ordermethod=title
|order=descending
|count=1
|format=,<div style="text-align:left;">[[File:Double arrow left.png|25px|link=%PAGE%|alt=<]] [[%PAGE%|%TITLE%]]</div>,
}}

{{{category|}}} allows a category parameter value to be passed to DPL3 to select pages from a specific category, in the default (blank) namespace, whose title is before/previous (alphabetically) to the current page title (without Namespace). Inline formatting is used, ordered by title in descending order, displaying only 1 result, and using an arrow image with page title beside it, both linked to the previous page title.

The Help:Next template contains content similar to:

{{#dpl:
|category={{{category|}}}
|namespace=
|titlegt={{PAGENAME}}
|mode=inline
|ordermethod=title
|order=descending
|count=1
|format=,<div style="text-align:left;">[[File:Double arrow left.png|25px|link=%PAGE%|alt=<]] [[%PAGE%|%TITLE%]]</div>,
}}

Functions the same as the Help:previous template, only |titlegt={{PAGENAME}} fetches the page title after/next (alphabetically) to the current page title (without Namespace).

This template formats a navigation bar, and calls the previous and next DPL3 templates in the first and last columns of a 3 column table. The {{{category|}}} parameter passes the |category=Fruit examples value (see next section) to both the Previous Temple and Next Temple templates, which then feed it to the DPL3 statement in each template. The middle column is used to link to the specified category page.

The Help:Navigation template contains content similar to:

{| style="width:100%; border:1px solid lightgrey; background:#e9f4f9;"
|style="width:40%;"|{{previous|category={{{category|}}}}}
|style="width:20%; text-align:center;"|[[:Category:{{{category|}}}|{{{category|}}}]]
|style="width:40%;"|{{next|category={{{category|}}}}}
|}

This template formats a navigation bar, and calls the previous and next DPL3 templates in the first and last columns of a 3 column table. The {{{category|}}} parameter passes the |category=Fruit examples value (see next section) to both the Previous Temple and Next Temple templates, which then feed it to the DPL3 statement in each template. The middle column is used to link to the specified category page.

The navigation template can then be used on a page and pass the Fruit examples category name as follows:

{{navigation|category=Fruit examples}}

Notes:

It may be helpful to remember:
- The last two letters of titlegt ("lt") correspond to letters in "left", so result(s) to the left of the article specified are returned.
This parameter may allow efficient navigation between pages in the same category or result set, or large result sets.
In DPL3 parser function syntax method:
- titlelt could be set to {{PAGENAME}}, a count of one, and used to compose a left/previous navigation.
- titlegt could be set to {{PAGENAME}}, a count of one, and used to compose a right/next navigation.
For other methods of scrolling navigation between items in a category, that makes implicit use of this parameter, see scrolling.

titlegt (Previously title>)

titlegt	Restrict the selection to articles with a title greater or equal to a given value.

Syntax:

titlegt=string

The string given need not be a valid page title.

This parameter was standardized to titlegt and it is recommended to switch instances to the new wording. For compatibility purposes, title> continues to work.

Example:

This selects the article after the Chocolate Cake article, as they appear in Category:Dessert examples.

The format statement formats the output into a plain page title, the count is set to 1 to ensure only one next page is returned.

{{#dpl:
|titlegt = Chocolate Cake
|category   = Dessert examples
|format = ,[[%PAGE%|%TITLE%]]
|count   = 1
}}

Notes:

It may be helpful to remember:
- The last two letters of titlegt ("gt") correspond to letters in "right", so result(s) to the right of the article specified are returned.
This parameter may allow efficient navigation between pages in the same category or result set, or large result sets.
In DPL3 parser function syntax method:
- titlegt could be set to {{PAGENAME}}, a count of one, and used to compose a right/next navigation.
- titlelt could be set to {{PAGENAME}}, a count of one, and used to compose a left/previous navigation.
For other methods of scrolling navigation between items in a category, that makes implicit use of this parameter, see scrolling.

titlematch

titlematch	Select articles with a title matching at least one of the specified patterns. The patterns are used as a LIKE argument in an SQL query. Namespaces are ignored, as the `namespace` parameter can be used to further narrow the selection.

Syntax:

titlematch=pattern¦...

Example 1:

This outputs all pages (regardless of namespace) which have a name that contains "pple" somewhere in the title or start with "Oran".

{{#dpl:
|titlematch=%pple%¦Oran%
}}

Example 2:

This outputs all pages in the main namespace which begin with "Apple".

{{#dpl:
|namespace=
|titlematch=Apple%
}}

Notes:

The match is case-sensitive, even regarding the first character; to make it case-insensitive, use the parameter ignorecase.
Spaces are translated to \_ (escaped underscore) as MediaWiki internally stores names with underscores instead of spaces. Using an underscore in your titlematch argument means 'any single character' in SQL LIKE expressions.

titleregexp

titleregexp	Select articles with a title matching the specified regular expressions. The pattern is used as a REGEXP argument in a SQL query. Namespaces are ignored, as the namespace= parameter can be used to further narrow the selection.

Syntax:

titleregexp=regular expression

Example:

This lists pages (regardless of namespace) that have an "A" in their name and end with an "e" (limited to three results). Use the parameter ignorecase to make the comparison case-insensitive.

{{#dpl:
|titleregexp=[A]+.*e$
|count=3
}}

Note: If you are not familiar with regular expressions or do not know the specifics of Perl regexp used in PHP, it may be helpful to see:

The PHP manual and W3Schools for more information.
RegExr for testing regular expressions.

nottitlematch

nottitlematch	Select articles with a title not matching any of the specified patterns. The patterns are used as a LIKE argument in a SQL query. Namespaces are ignored, as the namespace= parameter can be used to further narrow the selection. Normally, you would want to use this selection only in combination with other criteria. Otherwise, output could become huge.

Syntax:

nottitlematch=pattern¦...

Example:

This lists pages (regardless of namespace) in Category:Card Pack Dragons that don't contain "i" or "e" in their title (case-sensitive).

{{#dpl:
|category = Card Pack Dragons
|nottitlematch=%i%¦%e%
|count = 50
}}

nottitleregexp

nottitleregexp	Select articles with a title that does not match the specified regular expression. Normally, you would want to use this selection only in combination with other criteria. Otherwise, output could become huge.

Syntax:

nottitleregexp=regular expression

The expression is used as a REGEXP argument in a SQL query. Namespaces are ignored, as the namespace= parameter can be used to further narrow the selection.

Note: If you are not familiar with regular expressions or do not know the specifics of Perl regexp used in PHP, it may be helpful to see:

The PHP manual and W3Schools for more information.
RegExr for testing regular expressions.

Select articles based on CONTENTS

includematch

includematch	Controls the selection of articles based on the content that is included from them.

Syntax:

includematch=regexp1,regexp2,...

The idea is that a page is only selected (and its contents included) if the contents to be included matches a regular expression. In the case of (heading based) chapter inclusion and labeled section inclusion, the relevant contents of the page must match the pattern; in the case of template based matching it is the complete wikitext of the calling code of your template which is tested against your regular expression. Be careful to design your regexp in a proper way so that it can match all syntactical variations, and note that we use Perl regular expressions. This means that the regext must be delimited with two identical characters that are not part of the regexp itself, e.g., with /. Otherwise, strange error messages are gievn from the PHP interpreter.

Note: If you are not familiar with regular expressions or do not know the specifics of Perl regexp used in PHP, it may be helpful to see:

The PHP manual and W3Schools for more information.
RegExr for testing regular expressions.

For named parameters something like this should be used, to be on the safe side:

includematch=/\{{!}}\s*myParameter\s*=\s*myPattern/s

Thus, spaces can be put around the = and line breaks used in the original article when calling the template – and the pattern still matches.
Note: {{!}} must be used to produce a pipe symbol – otherwise the pipe breaks the parameter structure of the DPL call.

For unnamed parameters something like the following could be specified

includematch=/\{{!}}\s*myPattern/s

If the parameter is not the last one in the template call, this might be used:

includematch=/\{{!}}\s*myPattern\s*\{{!}}/s

See the include parameter.

Example 1:

This lists articles in Category:Fruit examples, in the Main namespace, which contain a call to the template "Fruit-Infobox" and use the "grows" parameter of that template with an argument that contains "Vines" or "vines" as a text string. The example is also formatted into a (simple) table, using the table parameter.

There is no pattern specified for the first element of the include statement. "VINES" would not match; we could use the "i" modifier with the regexp to match without case sensitivity if we wanted to.

{{#dpl:
|category=Fruit examples
|namespace=
|include={Fruit-Infobox}:grows
|includematch=/grows\s*=\s*[^¦]*[Vv]ines/s
|table=class="wikitable", Page, Growth Area
}}

Note(s):

In combination with templates, the regexp matching only works if some output is produced via the include statement. So, if a dummy parameter only is called, or a surrogate/phantom template is called that does not produce any output, no matches are seen. It is, however, sufficient to produce a space character to get output. It is not necessary to output the parameter which matches your regexp.
Remember, the pipe | must be replaced with either broken pipe ¦ or {{!}}, or with in [^¦] when parser function {{#dpl:}} syntax is used, or the statement won't work because the pipe would be mistaken as a field delimiter for #dpl itself, and break the parameter structure of the DPL3 call.

To stop the pattern matching at field boundaries (i.e., at pipe characters) something such as this might be used:

Parser function syntax (note that broken pipe ¦ is used).

includematch=/languages\s*=\s*[^¦]*English/s

Parser extension syntax (note that regular pipe | is used).

includematch=/languages\s*=\s*[^|]*English/s

Example 2:

This list articles in the Category:Countries in North America category, which contain a call to the template "Country-Infobox" and use the "capital" parameter of that template with an argument that contains "Ottawa" as a text string. It would stop pattern matching after the line containing |capital=Ottawa. This example is formatted as a (simple) table using the table parameter.

{{#dpl:
|category=Countries in North America
|include={Country-Infobox}:capital
|includematch=/capital\s*=\s*[^¦]*Ottawa/s
|table=class="wikitable sortable",Page,Capital
}}

includematchparsed

includematchparsed	Controls the selection of articles based on (pre-parsed) contents that is included from them.

Works exactly like includematch but the contents are parsed before it is tested against the regular expression.

includenotmatch

includenotmatch	Controls the selection of articles based on contents that is included from them.

Syntax:

includenotmatch=regexp1,regexp2,...

The idea is that a page is only selected (and its contents included) if the contents to be included does not match a given regular expression. In the case of (heading based) chapter inclusion and labelled section inclusion, the relevant contents of the page must not match the pattern; in the case of template based matching, it is the calling code of the template which must not match the regular expression. Be careful to design the regexp in a proper way, so it covers all syntactical variations. Something like the following should be used to be on the safe side:

includenotmatch=myParameter\s*=\s*myPattern/s

Thus, spaces can be put around the = and line breaks used in the original article when calling the template – and still, the pattern does its job.

See the include parameter.

Example:

This lists articles in Category:Countries in North America that contain a call to the template "Country-Infobox" and use the "capital" parameter, with an argument that does not contain "Ottawa" or "ottawa" as a text string. Note that there is no pattern specified for the first element of the include statement. "OTTAWA" would not match; we could use the "i" modifier with the regexp to match without case sensitivity if we wanted so.

{{#dpl:
|category=Countries in North America
|include={Country-Infobox}:capital
|includenotmatch=/capital\s*=\s*[^¦]*[Oo]ttawa/s
|table=class="wikitable sortable",Country,Capital
}}

Note: If you are not familiar with regular expressions or do not know the specifics of Perl regexp used in PHP, it may be helpful to see:

The PHP manual and W3Schools for more information.
RegExr for testing regular expressions.

includenotmatchparsed

includenotmatchparsed	Controls the selection of articles based on (pre-parsed) contents that are included from them.

Works exactly like includenotmatch but the contents are parsed before it is tested against the regular expression.

Select articles based on REVISION dates

By default, DPL uses "Y-m-d H:i:s" to display date and time. Note that MediaWiki stores all dates/times in UTC format. When displaying a time stamp, DPL translates it according to:

The timezone preference (difference to UTC/GMT) given by the user in user settings.
If no preference is given, and for all anonymous users, the local time on the server is used.

So, either a time based on the user's local time (browser based), or based on the timezone in which the wiki server is running is seen. The same kind of translation applies to dates specified when selecting articles by revision date/time.

lastrevisionbefore

lastrevisionbefore	Selects articles that existed before the specified date, and displays the last revision before that date (this latter date can be accessed using the `REVISION` variable in `mode=userformat`).

Syntax:

lastrevisionbefore=dateandoptionaltime where dateandoptionaltime is a numeric string of up to 14 digits, like "200812041300" (4th of Dec., 2008, 13:00).

The string may contain separation characters like "2008/12/04--13:00".

Note: If this parameter is used, the variable %REVISION% contains/returns the revision of the selected page(s).

firstrevisionsince

firstrevisionsince	Selects articles that had a revision created after the specified date, and displays that revision date (this latter date can be accessed using the `REVISION` variable in `mode=userformat`).

Syntax:
firstrevisionsince=dateandoptionaltime where dateandoptionaltime is a numeric string of up to 14 digits, like "200812041300" (4th of Dec., 2008, 13:00).

The string may contain separation characters like "2008/12/04--13:00".

Note: If this parameter is used, the variable %REVISION% contains/returns the revision of the selected page(s).

allrevisionsbefore

allrevisionsbefore	Shows all revisions that existed before the specified date. The date of each revision is shown (and is available as `REVISION` in `mode=userformat`).

Syntax:
allrevisionsbefore=dateandoptionaltime where dateandoptionaltime is a numeric string of up to 14 digits, like "200812041300" (4th of Dec., 2008, 13:00).

The string may contain separation characters like "2008/12/04--13:00".

Note: If this parameter is used, the variable %REVISION% contains the revision of the selected page(s).

allrevisionssince

allrevisionssince	Shows all revisions that were created after the specified date. The date of each revision is shown (and is available as `REVISION` in `mode=userformat`). If there was no new revision of an existing article after the specified date, that article does not appear in the output.

Syntax:

allrevisionssince=dateandoptionaltime where dateandoptionaltime is a numeric string of up to 14 digits, like "200812041300" (4th of Dec., 2008, 13:00).

The string may contain separation characters like "2008/12/04--13:00".

Note: If this parameter is used, the variable %REVISION% contains the revision of the selected page(s).

Example:

This lists articles in Category:Fruit examples, in the Main namespace, which have a revision since the 1st of April 2022.

{{#dpl:
|category=Fruit examples
|namespace=
|allrevisionssince=2022-04-01
|count=2
}}

maxrevisions

maxrevisions	Shows an article (or its revisions) only if its number of revisions are less than the value specified.

Syntax:
maxrevisions=number where number must be greater than or equal to 1.

minrevisions

minrevisions	Shows an article (or its revisions) only if its number of revisions are greater than the value specified.

Syntax:
minrevisions=number where number must be greater or equal than 1.

In practice, only values of 2 or greater make sense. Using a value of 2, freshly created pages could be excluded from a result set.

Select articles based on OTHER criteria

articlecategory

articlecategory	Selects a talk page based on the corresponding base article (in the default namespace) category.

Syntax:

articlecategory= categoryname

To select articles in namespace=Talk this statement could be used to define (in addition) a category for an article with an identical name in namespace 0 (default namespace).

includesubpages

includesubpages	Controls the inclusion or exclusion of pages which have a '/' in their name. The default is `true`.

Syntax:

includesubpages=false

As subpages are by default always included, only no or false makes sense as an argument for includesubpages.

redirects

redirects	Controls the inclusion or exclusion of redirect pages in the output. By default, redirections are not shown.

Syntax:

redirects=criteria where criteria can be one of:

include – Redirect pages are allowed in lists.
only – Lists only redirect pages in lists.
exclude – Redirect pages are excluded from lists – (default, need not be specified).

Example:

The result consists of content pages and redirect pages in the Category:Countries in North America (US is a redirect to United States).

{{#dpl:
|category  = Countries in North America
|redirects = include
}}

Note: this parameter does not show pages that link to the redirect (as Special:Whatlinkshere/United States does); only redirect pages themselves.

minoredits

minoredits	Controls the inclusion or exclusion of minor edits in output. Requires `ordermethod=[...]firstedit¦lastedit`.

Example 1:

minoredits=criteria where criteria can be one of:

exclude – Minor edits are excluded from lists.
include – Minor edits are included in lists – (default, need not be specified)

Example: 2

This list orders pages tagged with Category:Countries in North America by lastedit, but minor edits are ignored in the ordering.

{{#dpl:
|category=Countries in North America
|ordermethod=lastedit
|minoredits=exclude
}}

stablepages

stablepages	Controls the inclusion or exclusion of pages which are flagged as 'stable'.

Syntax:

stablepages=criteria where criteria can be one of:

exclude – Stable pages are excluded from lists.
only – Only stable pages appear in lists.
include – Stable pages appear in lists – (Default, need not be specified).

Note: This parameter is only useful if the wiki uses FlaggedRevs; it controls whether the pages flagged as 'stable' are part of the DPL result or not.

qualitypages

qualitypages	Controls the inclusion or exclusion of pages which are flagged as 'quality pages'.

Syntax:

qualitypages=criteria where criteria can be one of:

exclude – Quality pages are excluded from lists
only – Only quality pages appear in lists.
include – Quality pages are included in lists – (default, need not be specified)

Purpose: This parameter is only useful if the wiki uses FlaggedRevs. It controls whether pages flagges as 'quality pages' are part of the DPL result or not.

skipthispage

skipthispage	Includes the page containing the DPL query in the result set (self reference, which is excluded by default).

Syntax:

skipthispage=no – (default is yes, need not be specified and may cause problems if specified).

Notes:

The source page of the query is not included in the result set by default, even if it meets the query's criteria.
Setting this parameter to no may lead to runtime errors which are hard to track down. This value should only be used if the query is straightforward in structure, and the current page is required in the result set (if it matches the selection criteria).

Restrict the output (selection) volume

count

count	Controls the number of results shown.

Syntax:

count=n, where n is a positive integer.

Notes:

DPL3 limits the result count to 500 by default for performance reasons, this can be changed depending on extension configuration variables:
- $wgDplSettings['maxResultCount'] – Query result number maximum limit.
- $wgDplSettings['allowUnlimitedResults'] – Allow unlimited query results, which may result in slow or failed page loads.
  - A blank value (count=) sets results to unlimited, which may also result in slow or failed page loads.
See DynamicPageList3 more information on all configuration variables.
Count can also be set or overridden from outside a DPL3 query, by using the URL parameter DPL_count.

Example:

This lists articles in Category:Fruit examples, the two pages most recently changed, limited to a count of two.

{{#dpl:
|category=Fruit examples
|ordermethod=pagetouched
|count=2
}}

scroll

scroll	Enables built-in support for scrolling through large result sets, allowing them to be split into smaller result sets.

Syntax:

scroll=yes – (default is no which need not be specified, it only makes sense to set yes when required).

DPL3 can take certain URL parameters from the command line, like &DPL_fromTitle and &DPL_toTitle. Within the resultsheader and/or resultsfooter a template can be called that generates links to fetch the next / previous page.

Enabling scrolling does the following:

DPL3 enables the acceptance of special scroll URL parameters, such as &DPL_fromTitle and &DPL_toTitle.
- If these arguments are given, the commands title> and title< are implicitly be set.
- To make scrolling possible, DPL3 relies on such variables, which give the name of the first and last result items actually shown.
scroll=yes is used to fill the special URL parameters with proper values, and to set the title limits according to URL parameters derived from them.
- See scroll parameter/URL syntax for use.
- See scroll/URL parameters for a full list of special parameters.
URLs can then be used to create scroll navigation between results in the result set, or a template can be used within the resultsheader and/or resultsfooter that generates links to fetch the next / previous page(s), though if such is used it is likely that allowcachedresults=false needs to be set.
- Doing such sets auxiliary selection criteria titlelt= and titlegt=.

This mechanism can be used to create a generic page scroll feature – provided the value of DPL_offset can also be accessed in other templates outside of DPL3. This is where the other parameter execandexit comes in, it stores the URL parameters in a variable which can be accessed via #dplvar.

Example 1:

This selects pages from Category:Fruit examples. The count displays the first article using URL parameters, and an empty offset also using that syntax; setting both using scroll/url syntax, allows their query values to be overwritten by URL. The scroll parameter fills the scroll/url parameter values. The resultsheader displays header text to show the count and current result start number. Setting allowcachedresults=false prevents caching, so result changes are immediately seen when the URL is changed, without the need to manually purge the MediaWiki cache.

The result is a static display of the first 3 pages, but their display offset (page to start at) and count can be overwritten just by adding two DPL3-specific URL parameters &DPL_count=1&DPL_offset=1 to the end of the (index.php-style) URL. If you copy/paste the URL into your browser's URL bar, you can see the next result is loaded from the URL parameters:

https://www.dragon-mania-legends.wiki/w/index.php?title=PageTitle&DPL_count=1&DPL_offset=1

{{#dpl:execandexit=geturlargs}}
{{#dpl:
|category      = Fruit examples
|count         = {%DPL_count:1%}
|offset        = {%DPL_offset:0%}
|scroll        = yes
|resultsheader = Showing {%DPL_count:1%} pages starting from page ²{#expr:{%DPL_offset%} + 1}²:\n
|allowcachedresults = false
}}

Example 2:

The count and empty offset displays the first 3 articles from Category:Fruit examples using Scroll/URL syntax, and scroll fills the scroll/url parameter values. The resultsheader/footer use a helper template (Help:DPL3 scroll) to create scroll navigation, composed of magic word ({{PAGESINCATEGORY:Category}}) and some parameters are fed to that template, so it can determine total pages, count, and amount of offset. allowcachedresults prevents caching, to prevent the need for manual purge.

{{#dpl:execandexit=geturlargs}}
{{#dpl:
|category      = Fruit examples
|count         = {%DPL_count:3%}
|offset        = {%DPL_offset:0%}
|scroll        = yes
|resultsheader = ²{DPL3 scroll¦total={{PAGESINCATEGORY:Fruit examples|R}}¦offset={%DPL_offset:0%}¦count={%DPL_count:3%}¦page={{FULLPAGENAME}}}²\n
|resultsfooter = ²{DPL3 scroll¦total={{PAGESINCATEGORY:Fruit examples|R}}¦offset={%DPL_offset:0%}¦count={%DPL_count:3%}¦page={{FULLPAGENAME}}}²\n
|allowcachedresults = false
}}

offset

offset	Shows only a portion of a big result list; typically used in combination with count.

Syntax:

offset = n where n is the number of result lines to skip, (integer) – (default = 0)

Example:

This lists articles from Category:Fruit examples, offset by three (starting at the fourth in the list) and limited to a count of three. This means this displays articles #4, #5, and #6 from Category:Fruit examples. Next, ordermethod is used to order by title, ascending/alphabetically.

{{#dpl:
|category=Fruit examples
|offset = 3
|count  = 3
|ordermethod = title
|order = ascending
}}

Notes:

A DPL query could be put into a template with count and offset parameters. Calling this template with different values would allow different portions of the result list to be displayed.
If mode=ordered is used, the numbers are adjusted to reflect the absolute position of the entries, i.e., in the above example, numbers starting from 11 are observed.
If 'offset' is missing, it can be set from outside via the URL parameter DPL_offset.

randomcount

randomcount	Selects a subset from the result set for display, based on a random count.

Syntax:

randomcount=n where n is a positive integer.

If randomcount is larger than the number of results, the complete result set is displayed.

Example:

This selects from Category:Fruit examples and displaying at random, one article from a pool (or subset) of seven articles. Each time the page is previewed or refreshed, the results may randomly change.

{{#dpl:
|category=Fruit examples
|randomcount=1
|count=7
}}

randomseed

randomseed	Sets an initial value for the random generator.

Syntax:

randomseed=n where n is a positive integer.

Example:

This lists pages from Category:Fruit examples, a random count of 3, with the random seed set to a new value every day. Using this on your homepage, you could present a stable set of random articles for one day and switch to another set every day.

This example requires the ParserFunctions extension, and it also requires $wgPFEnableStringFunctions to be set to "true" (enabled) in order to function correctly.

{{#dpl:
|category=Fruit examples
|randomcount=3
|randomseed={{#time:Ymd}}
}}

distinct

distinct	Allows / suppresses duplicates in the output.

Syntax:

distinct=critria where criteria can be one of:

false – A page can occur more than once in the output.
strict – A page can occur only once in the output if more than one page is specified for linksto or linksfrom, and the same page is referenced by more than one.
true – A page can occur only once in the output – (default, need not be specified)

Works in connection with linksto and linksfrom:

A page can occur more than once in the output.
- This happens if more than one page is specified in linksfrom= or linksto= parameters, and the same page contains links to more than one of them (linksto), or if the same page is referenced by more than one of them (linksfrom).
- To see a page only once also in these cases, use distinct=strict.
- To see multiple result entries, set the value to false. This may make sense in combination with linksto= or linksfrom= to see how many links from one document to another document exist.

ignorecase

ignorecase	Makes comparisons insensitive to case.

Syntax:

ignorecase=true:

true – Comparisons are case-insensitive (only true makes sense as an argument)
false – Comparisons are case-sensitive – (default, need not be specified)

The parameter has an effect on linksto, uses, titlematch, titleregexp and their not-equivalents.

Note: For case-insensitivity in ordering result sets, see ordercollation.

Help

Help:Criteria for page selection

From Dragon Mania Legends (DML) Wiki

Select articles based on CATEGORY

category

categorymatch

categoryregexp

notcategory

notcategorymatch

notcategoryregexp

categoriesminmax

Select articles based on NAMESPACES

namespace

notnamespace

Select articles based on LINKS

linksfrom

openreferences

notlinksfrom

linksto

notlinksto

linkstoexternal

imageused

imagecontainer

Select articles based on the use of TEMPLATES

uses

notuses

usedby

Select articles based on authors / editors

createdby

notcreatedby

modifiedby

notmodifiedby

lastmodifiedby

notlastmodifiedby

Select articles based on TITLE

title

titlelt (Previously title<)

titlegt (Previously title>)

titlematch

titleregexp

nottitlematch

nottitleregexp

Select articles based on CONTENTS

includematch

includematchparsed

includenotmatch

includenotmatchparsed

Select articles based on REVISION dates

lastrevisionbefore

firstrevisionsince

allrevisionsbefore

allrevisionssince

maxrevisions

minrevisions

Select articles based on OTHER criteria

articlecategory

includesubpages

redirects

minoredits

stablepages

qualitypages

skipthispage

Restrict the output (selection) volume

count

scroll

offset

randomcount

randomseed

distinct

ignorecase