This template is safe for use in citation templates that produce COinS metadata; see Wikipedia:COinS. If HTML or other markup is added, then the template must be reevaluated.
This is the zero width joiner em dash zero width non joiner template; it renders like this (without the quote marks): "—"
It works similarly to the HTML markup sequence ‍—‌ i.e. a zero-width joiner (which will not line-break and will not collapse together with words that come before the template), a long dash (known as an em dash), and a zero-width non-joiner (which will line-break and will collapse together with words that come after the template). In essence, it is an em dash that will not break on the left side but will break on the right side if needed.
The recommended usage is to use no space before the template and no space after the template, like this:
He had three sons{{zero width joiner em dash zero width non joiner}}Jack, Tony, and Hector
This will render no spaces on each side of the em dash, like this:
He had three sons—Jack, Tony, and Hector
A line break will not come before one of the dashes but a line break may come after one of the dashes as rendered here:
We went to the store—but not the normal way—
we headed north—instead of south.
The template is used to conjoin words with an em dash but with a zero width joiner before the em dash and a zero width non-joiner after the em dash. Others uses of the template "zero width joiner em dash zero width non joiner" are within other templates, tables, lists, and similar things to provide a separator between items. It is also to be consistent so that the article editor can use their choice of {{bull}}, {{dot}}, {{middot}}, {{spaced en dash}}, {{spaced en dash space}}, or {{zero width joiner em dash zero width non joiner}} and not have to insert the • , · , · , – , – , or — symbols; they can use any of these templates as a simple macro.
See above and right, for shortcuts editors can use to easily implement this template in articles, or on any other pages. They are mnemonic—pick the one that is easiest for you to remember and recognize.
Category
