This template is intended as a meta-template: a template used for constructing other templates. It is not meant for use directly in an article, but can be used on a one-off basis if required. See Help:Infobox for an introduction to infoboxes and information on how to design them. See :Category:Infobox templates for specific infobox templates.

### Usage
Usage is similar to , but with an additional distinction. Each row on the table can contain either a header, or a label/data pair, or just a data cell. These are mutually exclusive states so if you define a row with both a header and a label/data pair, the label/data pair is ignored.

To insert an image somewhere other than at the top of the infobox, or to insert freeform data, use a row with only a data field.

### Content parameters

#### Title
There are two different ways to put a title on an infobox. One contains the title inside the infobox's border in the uppermost cell of the table, the other puts as a caption it on top of the table. You can use both of them together if you like, or just one or the other, or even neither (though this is not recommended):

Examples:

#### Main data
Note: for any given value for (n), not all combinations of parameters are permitted. The presence of a will cause the corresponding  to be ignored; the absence of a will cause the corresponding to be ignored. Valid combinations for any single row are:

See the rendering of header4, label4, and data4 in the Examples section below.

##### Number ranges
To allow flexibility when the layout of an infobox is changed, it may be helpful when developing an infobox to use non-contiguous numbers for header and label/data rows. Parameters for new rows can then be inserted in future without having to renumber existing parameters. For example:

It is also possible to automatically renumber parameter names by using Module:IncrementParams.

Note that although there is no limitation on the number of rows available, row parameters should not be numbered more than 50 apart. See the #Limitations section below for more details.

##### Making data fields optional
A row with a label but no data is not displayed. This allows for the easy creation of optional infobox content rows. To make a row optional use a parameter that defaults to an empty string, like so:

This way if an article doesn't define the population parameter in its infobox the row won't be displayed.

For more complex fields with pre-formatted contents that would still be present even if the parameter wasn't set, you can wrap it all in an "#if" statement to make the whole thing vanish when the parameter is not used. For instance, the "#if" statement in the following example reads "#if:the parameter ''mass'' has been supplied |then display it, followed by 'kg'":

For more on #if, see here.

##### Hiding headers when all data fields are hidden
You can also make headers optional in a similar way. Consider this example:

If you want the first header to appear only if one or more of the data fields that fall under it are filled, one could use the following pattern as an example of how to do it:

header1 will be shown if any of item1, item2, or item3 is defined. If none of the three parameters are defined the header won't be shown and no emty row appears before the next static content. The trick to this is that the "#if" returns false only if there is nothing whatsoever in the conditional section, so only if all three of item1, item2 and item3 are undefined will the if statement fail.

Note that such trick may be sometimes very complex to test if there are many data items whose value depends on complex tests (or when a data row is generated by a recursive invokation of this template as a subbox). Ideally, the Lua module supporting this template should now support a new way to make each header row autohideable by detecting if there is at least one non-empty data row after that header row ,

### Presentation parameters

#### Italic titles
Titles of articles with infoboxes may be made italic, in line with WP:ITALICTITLE, by passing the  parameter.

#### HTML classes and microformats
-->
-->

This template supports the addition of microformat information. This is done by adding "class" attributes to various data cells, indicating what kind of information is contained within. Multiple class names may be specified, separated by spaces, some of them being used as selectors for custom styling according to a project policy or to the skin selected in user preferences, others beig used for microformats.

To flag an infobox as containing hCard information, for example, add the following parameter:

And for each row containing a data cell that's part of the vcard, add a corresponding class parameter:

...and so forth. "above" and "title" can also be given classes, since these are usually used to display the name of the subject of the infobox.

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats for more information on adding microformat information to Wikipedia, and microformat for more information on microformats in general.

### Examples
Notice how the row doesn't appear in the displayed infobox when a **label** is defined without an accompanying **data** cell, and how all of them are displayed when a **header** is defined on the same row as a **data** cell. Also notice that **subheaders** are not bold by default like the **headers** used to split the main data section, because this role is meant to be for the **above** cell :



For this example, the **bodystyle** and **labelstyle** parameters are used to adjust the infobox width and define a default width for the column of labels:

### Embedding
One infobox template can be embedded into another using the parameter. This feature can be used to create a modular infobox, or to create more well defined logical sections. Previously, it was necessary to use embedding in order to create infoboxes with more than 99 rows, but there is now no limit to the number of rows that can be defined in a single instance of .

Note, in the examples above, the child infobox is placed in a  field. Notice that the section subheadings are not in bold font if bolding is not explicitly specified. To obtain bold section headings, place the child infobox in a **header** field (but not in a **label** field because it would not be displayed!), either using

or,

Note that omitting the parameter, and not including any text preceding the embedded infobox, may result in spurious blank table rows, creating gaps in the visual presentation.

### Subboxes
An alternative method for embedding is to use , which removes the outer border from the infobox, but preserves the interior structure. One feature of this approach is that the parent and child boxes need not have the same structure, and the label and data fields are not aligned between the parent and child boxes because they are not in the same parent table.

Similar embedding technics may be used within content parameters of some other templates generating tables (such as Sidebar) :

Note that the default padding of the parent data cell containing each subbox is still visible, so the subboxes are slightly narrower than the parent box and there's a higher vertical spacing between standard cells of the parent box than between cells of distinct subboxes.

### Full blank syntax
(Note: there is no limit to the number of possible rows; only 20 are given below since infoboxes larger than that will be relatively rare. Just extend the numbering as needed. The microformat "class" parameters are also omitted as they are not commonly used.)

### Limitations
Previously, the number of rows available to this template was limited to 99. This restriction has been lifted now that the template has been ported to a Lua module, but to maintain backwards compatibility there is now a limit on the number of rows apart by which parameters will be detected. If parameters are numbered more than 50 apart, the later parameters may be ignored (depending on the exact numbers involved), and if parameters are numbered more than 100 apart, the later parameters will definitely be ignored.

For example, this code will display properly:

 

But in this code, only Section 1, Label A and Data A will be displayed, because Data B is numbered too far away from Data A (and then all the rest is ignored):

 

Note that parameter values may be blank - parameters are counted unless they are completely absent, in header and data(n), from the template invocation:

 

If only **label(n)** is specified (even with a non-empty value) but neither **header(n)** nor **data(n)**, the parameter is ignored and considered as if it was missing:

 

There are also similar limitations for **image(n)** and **subheader(n)** parameters: in those cases, parameters should not be numbered more than 10 apart.

### Porting to other MediaWikis
The infobox template requires the Scribunto extension and HTMLTidy to be installed. It may not work with other MediaWikis. WikiProject Transwiki has a version of this template that has been modified to work on other MediaWikis.