Template:Countries of Africa/doc

Note: This template is used on a lot of pages. In order not to put too much load on the servers, edits should be kept to a bare minimum. Please discuss proposed changes on the talk page first.

Afterwards, changes can initially be done at and tested with Template:Countries of Africa/sandbox.

• Editing a template causes all pages that use the template to be re-rendered. If the template is used often, this can put a lot of load on the servers since it fills up the job queue.
• Keep in mind that templates that are used on file description pages also show up on other wikis.

This documentation is transcluded from Template:Countries of Africa/doc.

Displays a navigation box with links to similar galleries or categories for every country in a region. Links to existing pages are displayed using country names in the current user's language. Country names are obtained from Wikidata. If the name of a country is incorrect, find the country in this list and use the link in the Item column to check what changes have occurred at Wikidata.

Usage

{{Countries of Africa|prefix=:Namespace:Prefix text|suffix=suffix text}}

Template parameters

Parameter	Description	Default	Status
prefix	Text inserted before the English country name for each link.	empty	optional
suffix	Text added after the English country name for each link.	empty	optional
sep	Separator between prefix and name, and between name and suffix.	space	optional
simple	For some templates, |simple=yes simplifies the output, omitting some sections (e.g. for smaller or special territories, but possibly adding some of them in another displayed section).	empty	optional
showcode	Use |showcode=yes to also display the country/territory code (between square brackets) after each linked label. The codes displayed are those defined in the data module.	empty	optional
all	Use |all=yes for a temporary test to show all links without testing for their existence; will show red links.	empty	optional
nocat	Use |nocat=yes for a demonstration where a template with invalid parameters should not output a tracking category.	empty	optional

Templates and country data

The following templates are implemented by Module:Countries:

Template	Data module	Examples and test cases
{{Countries of Africa}}	Module:Countries/Africa	testcases
{{Countries of the Americas}}	Module:Countries/Americas	testcases
{{Countries of the Arab world}}	Module:Countries/Arab world	testcases
{{Countries of Asia}}	Module:Countries/Asia	testcases
{{Countries of the Caribbean}}	Module:Countries/Caribbean	testcases
{{Countries of Central America}}	Module:Countries/Central America	testcases
{{Countries of Europe}}	Module:Countries/Europe	testcases
{{Countries of the European Union}}	Module:Countries/European Union	testcases
{{Countries of North America}}	Module:Countries/North America	testcases
{{Countries of North America (subcontinent)}}	Module:Countries/North America (subcontinent)	testcases
{{Countries of Oceania}}	Module:Countries/Oceania	testcases
{{Countries of South America}}	Module:Countries/South America	testcases
{{Olympic teams}}	Module:Countries/Olympic teams	testcases
{{Constituent countries of the United Kingdom}}	Module:Countries/United Kingdom	testcases
{{States of the United States}}	Module:States of the United States	testcases
{{Departments of France}}	Module:Departments of France	testcases
{{Regions of France}}	Module:Regions of France	testcases

For example, {{Countries of Africa}} contains:

{{#invoke:Countries|main|Africa}}

The parameter Africa means data from Module:Countries/Africa is used. Changes to the countries or the text displayed are made in the data module.

Before updating the main data module, changes should be made in the sandbox data module and tested with the sandbox template:

Sandbox template	Sandbox data module
{{Countries of Africa/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Africa/sandbox
{{Countries of the Americas/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Americas/sandbox
{{Countries of the Arab world/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Arab world/sandbox
{{Countries of Asia/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Asia/sandbox
{{Countries of the Caribbean/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Caribbean/sandbox
{{Countries of Central America/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Central America/sandbox
{{Countries of Europe/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Europe/sandbox
{{Countries of the European Union/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/European Union/sandbox
{{Countries of North America/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/North America/sandbox
{{Countries of North America (subcontinent)/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/North America (subcontinent)/sandbox
{{Countries of Oceania/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Oceania/sandbox
{{Countries of South America/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/South America/sandbox
{{Olympic teams/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/Olympic teams/sandbox
{{Constituent countries of the United Kingdom/sandbox}}	Module:Countries/United Kingdom/sandbox
{{States of the United States/sandbox}}	Module:States of the United States/sandbox
{{Departments of France/sandbox}}	Module:Departments of France/sandbox
{{Regions of France/sandbox}}	Module:Regions of France/sandbox

For example {{Countries of Africa/sandbox}} just contains:

{{#invoke:Countries/sandbox|main|Africa}}

And it uses the sandbox version of the associated data module, used by Module:Countries/sandbox (which is the sandbox version of Module:Countries).

Displaying the sandbox version of a template also allows testing changes in Module:Countries, without modifying the template or its associated data module (which don't need to be changed in their sandbox version).

The following two examples below allow testing changes made in the sandbox before applying working modifications to the normal version. This should work as intended and will finally display the same thing between the normal and sandbox versions of the template (and of their associated data module) once these versions are synchronized.

• {{Countries of Africa/sandbox|prefix=:Category:}}
• {{Countries of Africa|prefix=:Category:}}

See more examples in the testcases listed above for the normal version with their rendering to compare the results in the sandbox version.

Errors

If an invalid parameter is used, an error message is displayed when an edit to the page is previewed. If a page with an error is saved, no message is displayed but the page is added to a hidden error tracking category: Category:Countries template with invalid parameters.

For example the following code misspells the expected suffix parameter (For this demonstration, no tracking category is added because |nocat=yes is used).

{{Countries of Africa|prefix=:Category:Maps of|sufix=by region|nocat=yes}}

Previewing an edit on any category or gallery page, with such code added (not on this documentation page!) shows the result and the following message will appear. You can fix it by editing the code in your edited page.

No description.

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
prefix	prefix	Text inserted before the English country name for each link.	Line	optional
suffix	suffix	Text added after the English country name for each link.	Line	optional
sep	sep	Separator between prefix and name, and between name and suffix.	Line	optional
simple	simple	For some templates, simple=yes simplifies the output, omitting some sections (e.g. for smaller or special territories, but possibly adding some of them in another displayed section).	Line	optional
showcode	showcode	Use showcode=yes to also display the country/territory code (between square brackets) after each linked label. The codes displayed are those defined in the data module.	Line	optional
all	all	Use all=yes for a temporary test to show all links without testing for their existence; will show red links.	Line	optional
nocat	nocat	Use nocat=yes for a demonstration where a template with invalid parameters should not output a tracking category.	Line	optional