Editing WoW:ItemLink

{{DISPLAYTITLE:itemLink}}
{{wowapitype}}

[[ItemLink]]s are [[itemString]]s with additional formatting for embedding 'link' text for a [[item|game item]] link, typically used for display in the UI such as text boxes that can display them as clickable hyperlinks. See {{apif|GetAuctionItemLink}}, {{apif|GetContainerItemLink}}, {{apif|GetInventoryItemLink}}.

 |cff9d9d9d|Hitem:3299::::::::20:257::::::|h[Fractured Canine]|h|r

== Format ==

* |cff9d9d9d - Colorizes the link with a medium grey color (hex color code)
** The first two characters after '|c' may be the alpha level, where 'ff' is fully opaque.
** The next three sets of two characters represent the red, green, and blue levels, just like HTML.
* |H - Hyperlink link data starts here
* item:7073:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 or item:7073:::::::::::: -  the item string. See [[itemString]].
* |h - End of link, text follows
* [Broken Fang] - The actual text displayed
* |h - End of hyperlink
* |r - Restores color to normal

 |cff9d9d9d|Hitem:7073::::::::::::|h[Broken Fang]|h|r

== Summary ==

=== Example ===
 local itemLink =
     "|cff9d9d9d|Hitem:3299::::::::20:257::::::|h[Fractured Canine]|h|r"
 local itemString = string.match(itemLink, "item[%-?%d:]+")
Produces:
 itemString == "item:3299::::::::20:257::::::"
This example extracts the itemString from a given itemLink using the string.match regex Lua function.

== Details ==

'''To obtain all the data within a hyperlink, you can use the following:'''
 local _, _, Color, Ltype, Id, Enchant, Gem1, Gem2, Gem3, Gem4,
     Suffix, Unique, LinkLvl, Name = string.find(itemLink,
     "|?c?f?f?(%x*)|?H?([^:]*):?(%d+):?(%d*):?(%d*):?(%d*):?(%d*):?(%d*):?(%-?%d*):?(%-?%d*):?(%d*):?(%d*):?(%-?%d*)|?h?%[?([^%[%]]*)%]?|?h?|?r?")
Note that this will accept any hyperlink (item/spell/quest/talent/achievement/tradeskill/etc), it will take itemstrings alone, or even just a single number.

=== Printing links for debug ===

Printing out the contents of an item link is perhaps not so obvious; displaying it anywhere in-game will just show you a clickable link. Reformat it slightly to ruin the [[UI Escape Sequences|escape sequences]] and you'll see what it really looks like:

 link = [[API GetContainerItemLink|GetContainerItemLink]](0, 1);
 printable = [[API gsub|gsub]](link, "\124", "\124\124");
 ChatFrame1:AddMessage("Here's what it really looks like: \"" .. printable .. "\"");

"124" is the ascii value of the "|" character. If you are writing this in a regular .lua file, feel free to go ahead and just use "|" and "||". However, if you're typing it in an in-game editor, it's better to use the ascii code escape to avoid problems.

== Simple ingame item look-up ==
For calling up an item in the game that is not available via shift+left-click (such as something on the AH or in the professions tab), follow these very easy steps:
*Look up the item on wowhead
*Click on the "Links" button in the top right of the item page
*Select the "Ingame link" section (usually already selected); copy the information
*Enter the game and paste the information into the chat window
*A clickable link for that item should appear

== Changes ==
* Patch 5.0.4 - changed the number of [[itemString]] parameters from 10 to 11
* Patch 7.0.3 - in the 'itemString' portion place holder 0s can be removed or left blank to be assumed 0. For example ''|cff9d9d9d|Hitem:7073:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:80:0:0:0:0|h[Broken Fang]|h|r'' becomes ''|cff9d9d9d|Hitem:7073:::::::0:80::::|h[Broken Fang]|h|r''. See [[itemString]]

== Notes ==
* The format of the link is similar for enchant, spell and quest links, with merely the "itemstring" changing. See [[spellString]], [[enchantString]] and [[questString]]

== See Also ==
* [[itemString]]
* {{apif|GetContainerItemLink}}
* [[item|game item (item)]]
* [[questString]], [[spellString]], [[enchantString]]