Template:Infobox road/doc/tech

Various technical notes related to Infobox road (IBR) that are either too obscure or too advanced for the average editor.

Countries
The "country", "state", and "province" parameters are all fed into Infobox road/meta/mask/country, a mask that determines what country is needed. If a country is added that has states, provinces, or an equivalent subdivision, the mask template will need to be updated accordingly; otherwise, it will not output the correct country and the infobox will not use the correct templates. If both "country" and "state"/"province" are specified, the country takes precedence.

Every transclusion that uses the "type" parameter must use either "country", "state", or "province" as well. As an example, all U.S. Highway and Interstate Highway articles must have "country=USA" if they don't have "state=". Articles that use "type" without using "country", "state", or "province" will not display correctly and are categorized in Category:Infobox road transclusion errors.

General notes
"spur_type" must be added to all articles that use "spur_of"; else, the parameter will not work.

For special routes, it is necessary to input the main route type and the special route type separately using "type" and "subtype", which is identical to how Infobox road small accepts special routes. This allows infobox road/banner to generate the correct banner and alt text for the route. It also eliminates the need for switches covering different capitalizations (BUS vs. Bus vs. bus) since the infobox uses a mask (infobox road/meta/mask/subtype1) to standardize the subtype input before it gets passed into the /country template.

Meta templates
IBR has several templates that are used by several countries (hence the "meta" in their name). They are:


 * Template:Infobox road/meta/colors – controls the color of the infobox's headers
 * Template:Infobox road/meta/errors – adds articles using regionally invalid location parameters to Category:Infobox road transclusion errors
 * Template:Infobox road/meta/length – calculates the conversion (miles to kilometers or kilometers to miles) of whichever length is specified
 * Template:Infobox road/meta/mask/category – sorts each instance into a category based on which country, state, province in which the route is
 * Template:Infobox road/meta/mask/country – a mask that determines which country a state or province in which the route is
 * Template:Infobox road/meta/mask/subtype1 – see "General notes" above
 * Template:Infobox road/meta/mask/subtype2 – a mask that takes the output of subtype1 and outputs the full name of the subtype ("Alt" becomes "Alternate", for example)
 * Template:Infobox road/meta/spur of – controls the output of the spur_of line in the "Route information" section

Location
This template has nine location parameters and one route information parameter that are restricted to use in only certain regions or countries. The restriction is handled by subtemplates of "Template:Infobox road/hide/", which processes the given country, state, or province and determines whether the parameter is cleared for use there. If it is not, the article is placed in Category:Infobox road transclusion errors. All of these subtemplates are fully protected per WP:HRT.