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Global Variables

These Global Variables can be used anywhere within your Templates. Note that they are subject to ExpressionEngine’s parsing order, which can affect their availability when used inside other tags.

Single Variables

Show List

{app_build}

The build date of ExpressionEngine that you are using.

{app_version}

The version of ExpressionEngine that you are using (2.2.0, 2.3.0, etc.).

{charset}

This variable will be substituted for the global character set (UTF-8). It is typically used in your META tags to indicate the character encoding:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset={charset}" />

{cp_session_id}

The active session id for the control panel. This is the value needed in the “S=” portion of the control panel URL. Only made available for logged-in members who have access to the Control Panel. Used to build a URL from the front-end to, for instance, an add-on in the control panel. If sessions are not required for control panel login, this variable returns 0.

{if logged_in_primary_role_id == 1}
  &bull; <a href="{cp_url}?/cp/addons/settings/my_addon{if cp_session_id}&S={cp_session_id}{/if}">CP Link</a>
{/if}

Note: To check non-primary roles, use exp:member:has_role

{cp_url}

The URL to the control panel for this site. Only output for logged-in members who have access to the Control Panel.

{csrf_token}

This variable is a required value for the hidden form field ‘csrf_token’.

{current_path}

This variable outputs the current URI path relative to your ExpressionEngine installation, e.g. news/article/man-captures-all-the-rabbits.

Note: If there are no URL segments, this will output a slash: /

{current_time}

This variable displays the current server time localized to each user’s particular setting. As with other date variables, you will use the standard date variable formatting:

{current_time format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"}

Note: Unlike the rest of the Standard Global Variables, {current_time} is parsed very early on in the Template parser, which allows you to make dynamic use of it in your tags, for instance as a tag parameter, or in a conditional.

{current_query_string}

This variable displays the current security-filtered query string, which can be useful to append to your path variables when you want a link to retain the current query string, e.g.:

gclid=1123581321

Note: This variable has already been URL encoded so all characters are transported safely and ready to append to URLs as needed.

{current_url}

This variable displays the full current URL.

{debug_mode}

This variable will be substituted with either “on” or “off” based on your debug mode settings.

{doc_url}

This variable will be substituted with the user guide URL.

{elapsed_time}

The amount of time, in seconds, it took ExpressionEngine to render the current page.

{embed} 

{embed='news/local'}

This variable allows you to embed one Template within another. Please see the Embedded Templates section.

{encode} 

{encode="[email protected]" title="Email Me!"}

This variable will encode the specified email address using javascript and HTML entities to make it more difficult for spam harvesters to grab an email address from your site. If you normally show your email address on your site you are encouraged to use this variable. The title parameter on the variable allows you to specify the text you want to use for the link.

Email Me!

{gzip_mode}

This variable will be substituted with either “on” or “off” based on your output compression settings mode settings.

{hits}

This variable will be substituted with the number of hits that any given template containing the variable has received.

{homepage}

This variable will be substituted with the URL to the root directory of your site preference under Settings --> URL and Path Settings.

{is_ajax_request}

Boolean (TRUE/FALSE) variable representing whether or not the template is being accessed via an Ajax request (XMLHttpRequest header). Most commonly this would be used to prevent direct access of template stubs used as content providers for Ajax, e.g.:

{if ! is_ajax_request}
  {redirect="404"}
{/if}

{!-- ExpressionEngine tags below to define content to return --}

{is_live_preview_request}

Boolean (TRUE/FALSE) variable representing whether or not the current request is a Live Preview from the control panel. Most commonly you would use this to add/hide information on your preview page for content authors:

{if is_live_preview_request}
  {!-- include sample rendering of a social share, Twitter card, FB post, etc. --}
{/if}

{lang}

This variable will be substituted for the Default XML Language preference under Settings --> General Settings.

{layout} 

{layout="news/local"}

This variable allows you to wrap a Template in another. Please see the Template Layouts section.

{member_group}

The Primary Role ID number for the currently logged-in user.

{member_profile_link}

This variable will be substituted with a link to the public profile page for the currently logged in user. The text of the link will be the member’s screen name. For instance, the output might be:

<a href="https://example.com/member/1/">Joe Smith</a>

{password_max_length}

This variable is used the maxlength property of password inputs on login forms:

<input type="password" name="password" maxlength="{password_max_length}" autocomplete='off' />

{redirect} 

{redirect='news/local' status_code="301"}

This variable allows you redirect the visitor to another template. Typically this will mean that you will be utilizing the tag within conditionals.

{if segment_3 != 'cookies'}   {redirect='bake/cookies'} {/if}

You can also use the redirect variable to provide tighter control of your URLs, and trigger 404 pages in certain conditions. When you want to display your 404 page, just use “404” for the template. For instance, you might do this on a template group’s ‘index’ template that you do not wish to be displayed if an arbitrary second URL segment exists.

{if segment_2 != ''}   {redirect="404"} {/if}

Be careful that through your redirect variables that you do not create an infinite loop.

The status_code parameter lets you optionally pass a 3xx redirect code (e.g. 301, 302).

{site_description}

Available to MSM sites only, this variable will be substituted with your site’s description as defined under Developer --> Site Manager.

{site_name}

This variable will be substituted with your site name as defined under Settings --> General Settings.

{site_url}

This variable will be substituted with your site URL as defined under Settings --> URL and Path Settings.

{site_id}

This variable will be substituted with the ID of your site as defined under Developer --> Sites (if MSM is enabled).

{template_name}

This variable displays the name of the template currently being processed.:

{template_group}

This variable displays the name of the template group for the template currently being processed.:

{template_id}

This variable displays the numeric ID of the template currently being processed.

{template_type}

This variable displays the type of the template currently being processed (e.g. “webpage”, “rss”, “xml”, etc.).

{template_edit_date}

This variable displays the localized time for when the template was last updated. As with other date variables, you will use the standard date variable formatting:

{template_edit_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"}

{theme_folder_url}

The URL to your theme/ee folder.

{theme_user_folder_url}

The URL to your theme/user folder.

{total_queries}

The total number of database queries used to generate the current page.

{variable_time}

This variable accepts a date parameter in the form of a human readable date, including relative_dates. Some examples of valid date= values:

The result is a standard ExpressionEngine date variable, and can use all date variable formatting and comparisons available to other date variables. In the case of :relative dates, the date is relative to the current user’s localized time. If no date parameter is give, the tag works just like the {current_time} variable.

Given a current date of April 12, 2018, see the following examples:

{variable_time date="2 days ago" format="%F %d, %Y"}
{!-- April 10, 2018 --}

{variable_time:relative date='2018-10-25' units='days'}
{!-- in 197 days --}

{variable_time date='{segment_3}-{segment_4}' format='%F'}
{!-- April (given a URL of https://example.com/news/archive/2018/04) --}

{if "{variable_time date='2 weeks ago' format='%U'}" >= "{variable_time date='2018-04-12'}"}
{!-- TRUE, if the current date is within 2 weeks of April 12, 2018. This works because both are output as Unix timestamps allowing basic <, >, =  for chronological comparisons. --}

Note: Like the {current_time} variable, {variable_time} is available to use as a tag parameter.

{webmaster_email} 

{encode="{webmaster_email}" title="Contact Us"}

The email address for the site, as specified in Email Configuration.

Custom Global Variables

You can define your own global variables as overrides in your config.php file or index.php file using global_vars property (which itself needs to be an associative array). These variables will be available to all of your templates.

Do not confuse these with Site Template Variables, which are defined in the control panel.

When using index.php file, you need set global_vars property in $assign_to_config array. For example:

$assign_to_config['global_vars'] = array(
    'show_banner' => 'y',
);

When using config.php file, you need to set the $config array variable. For example:

$config['global_vars'] = array(
    'show_banner' => 'n',
);

You can use the environment variables for the values of global variables. For example:

$config['global_vars'] = array(
    'show_banner' => $_ENV['SHOW_BANNER'],
);

Note that the global variables defined in config.php file will be overridden by the global variables defined in index.php file when a name conflict occurs.

Member Variables

{logged_in_avatar_filename}

The filename of avatar image for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_avatar_height}

Height of avatar image for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_avatar_width}

Width of avatar image for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_email}

The email address for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_ip_address}

This variable will be substituted with the IP address of the currently logged in user.

{logged_in_member_id}

The Member ID for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_primary_role_id}

The Primary Role ID number for the currently logged-in user.

Note: To check and display non-primary roles, use exp:member:has_role

{logged_in_primary_role_name}

The title of the Primary Role for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_primary_role_short_name}

The short name of the Primary Role for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_primary_role_description}

The Primary Role description for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_private_messages}

The number of unread private messages for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_screen_name}

The screen name for the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_total_comments}

The total number of comments posted by the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_total_entries}

The total number of entries posted by the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_total_forum_posts}

The total number of forum posts made by the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_total_forum_replies}

The total number of replies to forum posts by the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_total_forum_topics}

The total number of forum topics made by the currently logged-in user.

{logged_in_username}

The username for the currently logged-in user.

Error Variables

ExpressionEngine makes several variables available for handling Form Validation errors.

{if errors}

Conditionally check if error messages are present.

{errors}...{error}...{/errors}

This variable pair is useful for displaying all errors at once, for example, in a fieldset at the top of the form. Inside the pair, each individual error message is available as {error} variable.

{if errors}
    <p class="error">Please correct the following errors:</p>
    <ul>
        {errors}
            <li>{error}</li>
        {/errors}
    </ul>
{if:else}
    <!-- No errors, or form not submitted yet -->
{/if}

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