Template:Start date and age/doc

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This template is used on approximately 170,000 pages.
To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This template should not be used in citation templates such as Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2, because it includes markup that will pollute the COinS metadata they produce; see Wikipedia:COinS.

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This template uses Lua:

{{Start date and age}} displays the date that an event or entity started or was created. It also includes a duplicate, machine-readable date in the ISO 8601 format (which is hidden by CSS), for use inside other templates which emit microformats. The hidden date degrades gracefully when CSS is not available.

Usage

{{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} (year, month, and day)
{{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|df=yes}}
{{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|df=yes|p=yes|br=yes}}

Parameters

Parameter	Status	Description
`\|1=`	required	A four-digit number indicating the year.
`\|2=`	optional	A number between 1 and 12 indicating the month (leading zeros in the number are ignored).
`\|3=`	optional	A number between 1 and 31 indicating the day of the month (leading zeros in the number are ignored).
`\|df=`	optional	When set to `\|df=yes` or `\|df=y` displays the day before the month (e.g. "7 November 2004" instead of the default "November 7, 2004").
`\|p=` `\|paren=`	optional	When set to `\|p=yes` or `\|p=y` the age will be displayed within parentheses. When this parameter is not included, the date and age are separated by a semicolon and a breaking space.
`\|br=`	optional	When set to `\|br=yes` or `\|br=y` a line break will be inserted between the date and the age. When this parameter is not included, a breaking space will be inserted between the date and the age. This does not change the separating characters between the date and age which are either a semicolon (default setting) or parentheses (if `\|p=yes`).

Examples

Default separator: semicolon

Syntax	Result
Full date (year, month, day)
`{{Start date and age\|2010\|01\|02}}`	January 2, 2010; 15 years ago (2010-01-02)
`{{Start date and age\|2010\|1\|2\|df=yes}}`	2 January 2010; 15 years ago (2010-01-02)
`{{Start date and age\|2008\|01\|9\|df=y}}`	9 January 2008; 17 years ago (2008-01-09)
100 days ago: `{{Start date and age\|2025\|1\|11}}`	January 11, 2025; 3 months ago (2025-01-11)
Yesterday: `{{Start date and age\|2025\|4\|20}}`	April 20, 2025; 1 day ago (2025-04-20)
Today: `{{Start date and age\|2025\|4\|21}}`	April 21, 2025; 0 days ago (2025-04-21)
Year and month
`{{Start date and age\|2001\|9}}`	September 2001; 23 years ago (2001-09)
`{{Start date and age\|2002\|09}}`	September 2002; 22 years ago (2002-09)
Year only
`{{Start date and age\|2005}}`	2005; 20 years ago (2005)

Optional separator: parentheses

Syntax	Result
Full date (year, month, day)
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|15\|p=yes}}`	February 15, 2003 (22 years ago) (2003-02-15)
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|15\|df=y\|p=y}}`	15 February 2003 (22 years ago) (2003-02-15)
Year and month
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|p=y}}`	February 2003 (22 years ago) (2003-02)
Year only
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|paren=yes}}`	2003 (22 years ago) (2003)

Line break with semicolon

Syntax	Result
Full date (year, month, day)
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|15\|br=yes}}`	February 15, 2003; 22 years ago (2003-02-15)
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|15\|df=y\|br=y}}`	15 February 2003; 22 years ago (2003-02-15)
Year and month
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|br=y}}`	February 2003; 22 years ago (2003-02)
Year only
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|br=yes}}`	2003; 22 years ago (2003)

Line break with parentheses

Syntax	Result
Full date (year, month, day)
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|15\|p=yes\|br=yes}}`	February 15, 2003 (22 years ago) (2003-02-15)
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|15\|df=y\|p=y\|br=y}}`	15 February 2003 (22 years ago) (2003-02-15)
Year and month
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|02\|p=y\|br=y}}`	February 2003 (22 years ago) (2003-02)
Year only
`{{Start date and age\|2003\|paren=yes\|br=yes}}`	2003 (22 years ago) (2003)

TemplateData

TemplateData documentation used by VisualEditor and other tools

See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Start date and age in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Start date and age

The Start date and age template displays the date that an event or entity started or was created.

Template parameters
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Year	`1`	A four-digit number indicating the year Example 2017	Number	required
Month	`2`	A number between 1 and 12 indicating the month Example 12	Number	suggested
Day	`3`	A number between 1 and 31 indicating the day of the month Example 31	Number	suggested
Display date first	`df`	Set to 'yes' to show the day before the month name Suggested values `yes` `y`	Line	optional
Display with parentheses	`paren` `p`	Set to 'yes' to display the age within parentheses. When this parameter is not included, the date and age are separated by a semicolon and a breaking space. Suggested values `yes` `y`	Line	optional
Line break between date and age	`br`	Set to 'yes' to add a line break between the date and the age. When this parameter is not included, a breaking space will be inserted between the date and the age. This does not change the separating characters between the date and age which are either a semicolon (default setting) or parentheses (if paren=yes). Suggested values `yes` `y`	Line	optional

Use in microformats

This template also returns the date, hidden by CSS, in the ISO 8601 format needed by one or more of the following microformats:

hAtom (class="updated")
hAudio (class="published")
hCalendar (class="dtstart")
hCard (class="bday")

usually, but not always, within infobox or similar templates, or tables.

Its use in hCard is for organizations, venues and similar; use {{Birth date}} or {{Birth date and age}} for people.

Similarly, {{End date}} returns the date as hCalendar's (class="dtend").

See the microformats project for further details.

Limitation

This template has no provision to deal with a date in a non-Gregorian calendar. Also, ISO 8601 requires mutual agreement among those exchanging information before using years outside the range 1583–9999 CE. Therefore, use of this template for non-Gregorian dates or dates outside that range constitutes a false claim of conformance to the ISO 8601 standard.

Any editor encountering such usage should change the date to plain text with no template; or if not confident in doing so, raise the matter on this template's talk page.

Example

{{Start date and age|2016|12|31}} → December 31, 2016; 8 years ago

December&nbsp;31, 2016<span class="noprint">&#059;&#032;8 years ago</span><span style="display:none">&#160;(<span class="bday dtstart published updated">2016-12-31</span>)</span>

Usage in articles

This template is most often used in infoboxes in articles about buildings or organizations, identifying when they were started/founded/opened or dissolved/ended/closed.

It has also been used for naval ships to indicate their commissioned age; however, several Wikipedia editors have reverted such edits. Use of this template in ship articles is therefore not recommended.