This template is used on many pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.
This template is to help facilitate the displaying of variable names (in mathematics, computer source code, wikimarkup in template documentation, metasyntactic variables, etc.) with the semantically correct<var>...</var> tags, which also renders the variable in italics, as is customary. This method is preferred to simply italicizing for many reasons, including accessibility, separation of presentation and content, semantic Web, and metadata; In XHTML and HTML, the <var> element has semantic meaning, while simple italicization does not. This template provides a tiny hint of kerning to compensate for the italicization and enhance readability.
"Variable" in this sense may include arbitrary or unknown names or terms, examples of human input, arithmetical variables in equations, etc. This template (and the underlying XHTML) are generally not used if MediaWiki's <math>...</math> tags (or any other stand-alone mathematical markup) are being used.
Note that on the screen or in print, this renders as simple italicization, as does ''username'' (using pairs of apostrophes) or <i>username</i> (using HTML), yet it carries more semantic meaning than either of these methods.
At times, you may wish to use a serif font. This is especially true when attempting to render single-letter variables like "I" (upper-case "i") and "l" (lower-case "L"), since they are nearly indistinguishable (if at all). In such situations, use the {{varserif}} template instead of {{var}}, to make them more distinguishable, like these serif examples: I, l.
More examples
Markup
Renders as
The HTML code:
{{block indent|{{tag|var|content=username}}}}
renders as:
{{block indent|{{var|username}}}}
The HTML code:
<var>username</var>
renders as:
username
The commandline should read: {{samp|%}} {{kbd|1=ssh {{var|hostname}}}}<br />(where {{var|hostname}} is the IP address or ...)<br />If it is correct, press {{key press|Enter}}.
The commandline should read: %ssh hostname (where hostname is the IP address or ...) If it is correct, press ↵ Enter.
in this equation, let {{var|x}}{{=}}1 and {{var|y}}{{=}}120 ...
To indicate text is a variable name. Use for any variable names except those including "I" (uppercase i) and/or "l" (lowercase L); for these, {{var serif}} should be used to ensure a noticeable distinction
To display parameters as used in code (i.e. with triple braces), especially to indicate relationships between them. May be combined with {{para}} above
To display parameter values lightly bordered; replaces <code>...</code>, especially when value contains embedded or leading/trailing blanks; visualized here with {{middot}} (·) but can use ␠, ▯, or any character.
To showcase with colors in horizontal format the syntax of any template, while providing an easy way to display placeholder texts using colons as separators
To indicate text is source code. To nest other templates within {{code}}, use <code>...</code>. {{codett}} differs only in styling: someMethod becomes someMethodtext"background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;"
( or {{dc}}) To indicate deprecated source code in template documentation, articles on HTML specs, etc. The {{dc2}} variant uses strike-through (<blink>) while {{dcr}} uses red (<blink>).
To showcase with colors and multiple lines (vertical format) the syntax of any template, while providing an easy way to display placeholder texts using colons as separators
Template documentation