WoW API type: ItemLink

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ItemLinks are itemStrings with additional formatting for embedding 'link' text for a game item link, typically used for display in the UI such as text boxes that can display them as clickable hyperlinks. See GetAuctionItemLink(), GetContainerItemLink(), 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 escape sequences and you'll see what it really looks like:

link = GetContainerItemLink(0, 1);
printable = 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
• GetContainerItemLink()
• game item (item)
• questString, spellString, enchantString