A null edit occurs if a page save is made when the wikitext is not changed, which is useful for refreshing the cache. A null edit will not record an edit, make any entry in the page history, in Recent Changes, etc., and the edit summary is recorded in the user's autocomplete record, but not saved to the wiki.
- Examples:
- Opening the edit window and saving. A section edit save is sufficient, but can sometimes result in a dummy edit.
- Adding newlines only to the end of the article and saving. This is also a null edit.
If a transcluded template has added or removed a category since it was last transcluded then the purge function will not update the category page, but a null edit will.
When a page is moved or protected, the summary will be saved, along with a null edit.