Template:Voidd/doc

This is a documentation subpage for

Template documentation

This box: view • talk • edit

Template:Terminate sentence ensures a sentence ends with a specified terminator (default: a period). It avoids adding duplicate terminators and can optionally trim trailing spaces. It attempts to ignore trailing closing quotes or brackets when deciding whether a terminator is already present.

Usage

Basic:

{{Terminate sentence|This is a sentence}}
→ This is a sentence.

Named parameters:

{{Terminate sentence
 |text=He said "Hello"
 |term=.
}}
→ He said "Hello".

Custom terminator:

{{Terminate sentence|text=Warning|term=!}}
→ Warning!

Avoid duplicate terminator:

{{Terminate sentence|text=Already done.|term=.}}
→ Already done.

Trim trailing spaces:

{{Terminate sentence|text=Ends with space   |trim=yes}}
→ Ends with space.

Skip processing:

{{Terminate sentence|text=No changes here|skip=yes}}
→ No changes here

Append a note:

{{Terminate sentence|text=Complete|note=(source: 2025)}}
→ Complete. (source: 2025)

Parameters

1 / text: The input text to terminate.
term: The terminator to enforce at the end. Default is .. Common choices: !, ?.
trim: If yes/true/1, strips trailing spaces before checking.
skip: If yes/true/1, returns text unchanged (still appends note if provided).
allowdup: If yes/true/1, allows duplicate terminators (e.g., ellipses). Default disallows duplicates.
note: Optional text appended after a space, unaffected by termination logic.

Behavior details

Terminator detection attempts to ignore trailing closing quotes/brackets (", ', ”, ), ], }).
If the last visible character equals term, no extra terminator is added unless allowdup=yes.
If trim=yes, trailing spaces are removed before detection.
If note is present, it is added with a leading space after the final text.

Examples

Quotes:

{{Terminate sentence|text=He whispered "hush"|term=.}}

 → He whispered "hush".

Parentheses:

{{Terminate sentence|text=Complete (verified)|term=.}}

 → Complete (verified).

Exclamation:

{{Terminate sentence|text=Alert|term=!}}

 → Alert!

Ellipsis (allow duplicates):

{{Terminate sentence|text=Wait...|term=.|allowdup=yes}}

 → Wait....

Best practices

Prefer using term that matches the sentence intent (., !, ?).
For complex punctuation, consider the Lua-powered variant below.
Document usage in your template’s /doc page where you incorporate this helper.

Lua-powered variant (optional)

For more robust detection (including multilingual quotes and punctuation), create Module:TerminateUtil with:

-- Module:TerminateUtil
local M = {}

local closing = {
  [")"] = true, ["]"] = true, ["}"] = true,
  ['"'] = true, ["'"] = true, ["”"] = true, ["’"] = true, ["»"] = true, ["›"] = true
}

local function trimRight(s)
  return (s:gsub("%s+$",""))
end

function M.lastVisibleChar(args)
  local s = args.s or ""
  s = trimRight(s)
  local i = #s
  while i > 0 do
    local c = s:sub(i,i)
    if closing[c] then
      i = i - 1
    else
      return c
    end
  end
  return ""
end

return M

Then update the template to call:

{{#invoke:TerminateUtil|lastVisibleChar|s=text}}

This improves detection for closing quotes and brackets.

Monitoring parameter usage

To monitor the usage of a parameter of a template (in the case that many pages use the template), this template can call an auxiliary template of which the name depends on whether the parameter is defined. The possible auxiliary templates need not exist, if they are e.g. used as parameter value of Template:voidd (talk links edit), to avoid displaying anything (with the new preprocessor, Template:void (talk links edit) cannot be used for this anymore). Applying "What links here" to the possible auxiliary templates shows which pages use the template with the parameter, and which pages use the template without the parameter. This parameter usage monitor facility should preferably be built into the template when creating the template or introducing a new parameter. If it is done afterwards "What links here" may not show a page until it has been refreshed by an ordinary or dummy edit or purge.

Applications of monitoring parameter usage include:

check where the parameter has not yet been specified, in order to add it
check where a parameter is used that is renamed, in order to change the template calls
check whether a parameter is used before abolishing it
when a template has been changed with respect to processing a particular parameter, check the pages which use the parameter (or some of them) to see if things work as desired.

In a similar way an auxiliary template can be called for a "template / parameter / parameter value" combination or "template / parameter / parameter value range" combination. "What links here" then shows which pages use the template with this parameter value, or with the parameter in the given range.

See Template:Tim.