Template:Film date/doc

Purpose
This template has two functions:
 * 1) To provide correct formatting of film release dates and their locations within Infobox film. A citation for each date/location may also be supplied.
 * 2) To automatically categorize films according to their first release date.

Usage
This template is intended to supply a result to the released parameter of Infobox film.

The template adds  where YYYY is the year of first release, as well as   for films that have not reached their first release yet. Please note that  will only be added if the category exists, and that if only the year is included as the release date, the film is considered to be "upcoming" during that entire year.

The television equivalents of these categories ( and  ) are used when the TV parameter is set for use on television film articles.

Syntax
This template allows up to five release dates/locations, but normally no more than two are needed. Please see WP:FILMRELEASE for a full explanation.

One release date only


If no  is specified,   and   may be omitted. If  is specified, then   and   must be supplied, though they may be left blank or empty if not known;   is an optional parameter allowing a named reference ("xxxxx") to be used to verify the date/location of the release.

More than one release date

 * and similarly for up to five dates/locations.

In this case, all the,  ,   and   parameters, except the last, must be supplied, but as before,   and   may be left empty or blank if not known. Note that  ,  , etc. are optional named parameters, and either may be omitted without affecting the other parameters.

Examples
returns:

returns:

returns:

returns:

returns:

returns:

returns:

Optional parameters

 * df can be set to "y" or "yes" to display the day before the month. Default is month before day.

returns:

returns:


 * fy can be set to override the automatic category. For example:

uses the category

uses the category.


 * TV is to be used for television films. It sorts films into  in place of  . Set   or   to do this.


 * ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 are used to supply named references. See above for detail.

Technical notes
Do not use any of the following markup in front of this template:. Doing so will cause HTML errors. See MOS:INDENT for more guidance.

This template uses Start date to handle the hard work of date formatting, and Plainlist to format list items as recommended for use within infoboxes.



Tracking
Use of this template is tracked though the following categories:


 * Tracking use of the fy parameter, which overrides the automatic categorisation by year
 * Category:Template film date with category override (population )


 * Tracking by number of release dates:
 * Category:Template film date with 1 release date (population )
 * Category:Template film date with 2 release dates (population )
 * Category:Template film date with 3 release dates (population )
 * Category:Template film date with 4 release dates (population )
 * Category:Template film date with 5 release dates (population )
 * TOTAL by-release-date: 0

Note that these categories were created on 3 April 2020, and may take a few days to fully populate.