Editing Help:Link (section)

== Disallowed characters ==

A link whose target contains disallowed characters (see [[WP:Page name]]) will be displayed without markup, as in <code>[[A{b}]]</code>.

Conversions are automatically made to [[Help:Special characters|non-literal characters]] in wiki and interwiki links. For example, <code><nowiki>[[Help:Page%20name]]</nowiki></code> becomes <code>[[Help:Page name]]</code>. However, the opposite is true for external links; literal characters are converted into non-literal characters. For example, most browsers convert <code>.../wiki/!</code> to <code>.../wiki/%21</code>.

Some characters in a web address link need to be represented as [[escape character]]s because they are reserved for Wikipedia edits. Examples include <code>%5B</code> for <code>[</code>, <code>%5D</code> for <code>]</code>, <code>%3C</code> for <code><</code>, <code>%3E</code> for <code>></code>, <code>%7B</code> for <code>{</code>, <code>%7D</code> for <code>}</code>, <code>%7C</code> for <code>|</code>, and <code>%26</code> for <code>&</code>. More can be found by reading about [[Percent_encoding#Percent-encoding_reserved_characters|percent encoding]]. [[Numeric character reference]]s (e.g. <code>&amp;#91;</code> or <code>&amp;#x5B;</code>) should not be used in external links because the ampersand character (&) has a special meaning in a URL.

In excessive cases, an automatic [https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.ASP percent encoder such as the one at W3 Schools] (use the second JavaScript form under "URL Encoding Functions") is probably the simplest solution.  For example, pasting <code><nowiki>Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 41#{{Cite book}} and |contribution problems</nowiki></code> into that form yields the wikilink <code><nowiki>[[Help%20talk%3ACitation%20Style%201%2FArchive%2041%23%7B%7BCite%20book%7D%7D%20and%20%7Ccontribution%20problems]]</nowiki></code>, which appears as [[Help%20talk%3ACitation%20Style%201%2FArchive%2041%23%7B%7BCite%20book%7D%7D%20and%20%7Ccontribution%20problems]], as desired.<ref>Note that this wikitext isn't as pretty as the manual method, which would yield <code><nowiki>[[Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 41#%7B%7BCite book%7D%7D and %7Ccontribution problems]]</nowiki></code>.  This is because the encoder converts characters like space, :, and # which are legal in wikilinks and don't need to be converted.</ref>

{{anchor|Links containing URL query strings}}
=== Links containing ampersands ===

Because the [[Ampersand|ampersand character]] (&) is disallowed, it is not possible to create an ordinary link containing <code>&action=edit</code> or <code>&redirect=no</code> in the URL query string. These kinds of links can be helpful in user pages. Also, a redirect page can have categories and you might wish to view or edit these in a single click.  There are three ways to create these links:

* You can use the {{tl|Querylink}} template to append query parameters to a Wikipedia page URL. For example, <code><nowiki>{{Querylink|Help:Link|qs=action=history|this page's history}}</nowiki></code> produces the link {{Querylink|Help:Link|qs=action=history|this page's history}}.
* You can use the {{tl|Plain link}} template to encode a Wikimedia url link. For example,<code><nowiki>{{Plain link|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=79269392|name=query}}</nowiki></code> yields the link {{plain link|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=79269392|name=query}}.
* You can use the [[Help:Magic words|magic word]] <code>fullurl</code>. For example, to append <code>action=edit</code> to a URL query string you could use <code><nowiki>[{{fullurl:Help:Link|action=history}} this page's history]</nowiki></code>, which renders as [{{fullurl:Help:Link|action=history}} this page's history]. Note that this will render as an external link rather than as an internal link and for this reason it might not appear in what-links-here queries associated with the target page.