ExpressionEngine® 3 User Guide

Legacy Documentation

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Standard 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.

Variables

app_build

{app_build}

The build date of ExpressionEngine that you are using.

app_version

{app_version}

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

charset

{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

{cp_session_id}

The session id for the control panel. This is the value needed in the “S=” portion of the control panel URL. Only output for logged-in members who have access to the Control Panel, for instance to build a front-end URL to an add-on in the control panel:

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

cp_url

{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

{csrf_token}

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

current_path

{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

{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

{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

{current_url}

This variable displays the full current URL.

debug_mode

{debug_mode}

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

doc_url

{doc_url}

This variable will be substituted with the user guide URL.

elapsed_time

{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="you@example.com" 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

{gzip_mode}

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

hits

{hits}

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

homepage

{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

{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 --}

lang

{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

{member_group}

The Member Group ID number for the currently logged-in user.

password_max_length

{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

{site_description}

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

site_name

{site_name}

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

site_url

{site_url}

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

template_name

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

{template_name}

template_group

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

{template_group}

template_id

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

{template_id}

template_type

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

{template_type}

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

{theme_folder_url}

The URL to your theme folder.

total_queries

{total_queries}

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

webmaster_email

{webmaster_email}

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

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

Member Variables

logged_in_email

{logged_in_email}

The email address for the currently logged-in user.

logged_in_group_description

{logged_in_group_description}

The Member Group description for the currently logged-in user.

logged_in_group_id

{logged_in_group_id}

The Member Group ID number for the currently logged-in user.

logged_in_group_title

{logged_in_group_title}

The title of the member group for the currently logged-in user.

logged_in_ip_address

{logged_in_ip_address}

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

logged_in_location

{logged_in_location}

The location (as entered in their profile) for the currently logged-in user.

logged_in_member_id

{logged_in_member_id}

The Member ID for the currently logged-in user.

logged_in_private_messages

{logged_in_private_messages}

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

logged_in_screen_name

{logged_in_screen_name}

The screen name for the currently logged-in user.

logged_in_total_comments

{logged_in_total_comments}

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

logged_in_total_entries

{logged_in_total_entries}

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

logged_in_total_forum_posts

{logged_in_total_forum_posts}

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

logged_in_total_forum_replies

{logged_in_total_forum_replies}

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

logged_in_total_forum_topics

{logged_in_total_forum_topics}

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

logged_in_username

{logged_in_username}

The username for the currently logged-in user.