Template:Death date/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Death date. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template is used on 7,000+ 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.

Returns a person's date of death.

Using this template rather than simply inserting the date into articles allows for the inclusion of hidden metadata about the date. This metadata can be used by web browsers and other software tools to extract the details, and display them using some other website or mapping tool, index or search them.

Since the data is emitted in the ISO 8601 format, the calendar must be the Gregorian calendar; the first acceptable year is 1583, the last acceptable year is 9999 (which would only be a concern for fictitious characters).

{{Death date/doc|year of death|month of death|day of death|additional parameters}} where the month, day, and year are in the Gregorian calendar. Use of this template with non-Gregorian dates creates false hidden metadata.

{{Death date|1993|2|4|df=yes}} returns "(1993-02-04)4 February 1993"

{{Death date|1993|2|4|mf=yes}} returns "(1993-02-04)February 4, 1993"

Note: The template will appear broken when the parameters are left blank.

The df (day first) and mf (month first) parameters indicate the intended date format to display. The appropriate parameter should be set to "y" or "yes" e.g. df=yes or mf=y.

The default output of this template is to display the month before the day. This default may not be appropriate articles about people from parts of the world where the day almost always precedes the month in a date (e.g. Europe). In such articles the parameter, "df", should be set to display the day before the month.

The parameter "mf" will indicate that month first format is intended. Using these parameters can assist bots or other automated processing to detect which date format is intended; leaving the format as default may lead an editor or bot to change the format to an unintended value.

Do not specify both "df" and "mf" parameters in the same use of the template, as these formats are mutually exclusive.

Examples:

{{Death date | 1993 | 2 | 24 | df=yes }} displays "24 February 1993".

{{Death date | 1993 | 2 | 24 | mf=yes }} displays "February 24, 1993".