Editing Help:Template (section)

=== Whitespace ===
Whitespace (including newlines, tabs and spaces) is stripped from the beginning and end of all parameters. If this is not desirable, adding any non-whitespace characters (including the HTML ''encoding'' for a whitespace character, or invisible Unicode characters such as the zero-width space or direction marks) will prevent further stripping:

:<pre>{{#ifeq: foo            |            foo | equal | not equal }}</pre>
:&rarr; '''{{#ifeq: foo            |            foo | equal | not equal }}'''
:<pre>{{#ifeq: &amp;#32;foo           &amp;#32;|&amp;#32;           foo&amp;#32; | equal | not equal }}</pre>
:&rarr; '''{{#ifeq: &amp;#32; foo           &amp;#32; | &amp;#32;           foo &amp;#32; | equal | not equal }}'''

Judicious use of whitespace can make templates more readable, quicker to fill out, and easier to debug when unexpected behavior occurs. Compare the two uses below that would have identical results.

<pre style="width:auto; overflow:auto">
{{Template
 |   Parameter One = One
 |   Parameter Two = Two
 | Parameter Three = Three
 |  Parameter Four = Four
}}

{{Template|Parameter One=One|Parameter Two=Two|Parameter Three=Three|Parameter Four=Four}}
</pre>

==== Strip/Trim ====
Some complicated templates can experience problems with how white space is used when invoking the template (where you would get different results using <nowiki>{{template | variable }} vs. {{template|variable}}</nowiki> even though technically they should be the same. Use the {{tl|Strip}} function around the variable in the template for consistent results.