Editing WoW:SpellLink

{{DISPLAYTITLE:spellLink}}
{{wowapitype}}
spellLinks are returned by several functions, e.g. [[API GetSpellLink|GetSpellLink]](), etc.

In essence, they are [[spellString]]s with additional formatting to make in-game text controls display them as clickable hyperlinks.

 |cff71d5ff|Hspell:10060|h[Power Infusion]|h|r

Broken up in its components:

* <tt>"'''|cff71d5ff'''"</tt> &ndash; Colorizes the link with a blue/cyan color (all spell links are blue)
** The first two characters after pipe-c may be the alpha level, where <code>ff</code> is fully opaque.
** The next three sets of two characters represent the red, green, and blue levels, just like HTML.
* <tt>"'''|H'''"</tt> &ndash; "Hyperlink link data starts here"
* <tt>"'''spell:10060'''"</tt> &ndash; Read more at [[spellString]].
* <tt>"'''|h'''"</tt> &ndash; "End of link, text follows"
* <tt>"'''[Power Infusion]'''"</tt> &ndash; The actual text displayed
* <tt>"'''|h'''"</tt> &ndash; "End of hyperlink"
* <tt>"'''|r'''"</tt> &ndash; Restores color to normal


You can extract the spellString from a given spellLink with the following pattern:

 local found, _, spellString = string.find(spellLink, "^|c%x+|H(.+)|h%[.*%]")

Note: The format of the link is similar for enchant, spell and quest links, with merely the "spellstring" changing. See [[spellString]], [[itemString]], [[enchantString]] and [[questString]]

== Printing links for debug ==

Printing out the contents of an spell 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 GetSpellLink|GetSpellLink]](<i>spell</i>);
 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.