====== Namespaces======

A namespace is similar to a directory or folder, while pagenames are similar to files.
In DokuWiki  you can use namespaces to categorize your pages. For names of namespaces the same restrictions hold as for pagenames.

A default DokuWiki installation comes with the built-in namespace: //wiki//.

===== Creating Namespaces =====
You don't need to create namespaces separately; simply create pages with colons in the pagename. 
The token after the last colon will be the name of the page itself, while all other tokens are namespaces. 
All namespaces used in your pagename that don't exist already will be created by DokuWiki automatically.

In DokuWiki pages are created as in every other wiki. Simply create a link to a non existing page, follow this link, and click on Create this page. See also Adding pages.

^Examples:^^
|example\\ .example\\ .:example|refers to the page "example" in the **current** namespace.|
|:example|refers to the page "example" in the **root** namespace.|
|..example\\ ..:example\\ .:..:example|refers to the page "example" in the **parent** namespace|
|wiki:example|refers to the page "example" in the namespace "wiki". The namespace "wiki" is located **beneath the root** namespace.|
|ns1:ns2:example\\ :ns1:ns2:example|refers to the page "example" in the namespace ns2. The namespace ns2 is located beneath the namespace ns1; the namespace ns1 is located **beneath the root** namespace.|
|.ns1:ns2:example\\ .:ns1:ns2:example|refers to the page "example" in the namespace ns2. The namespace ns2 is located beneath the namespace ns1; the namespace ns1 is located **beneath the current** namespace.|
|..ns1:ns2:example\\ ..:ns1:ns2:example|refers to the page "example" in the namespace ns2. The namespace ns2 is located beneath the namespace ns1; the namespace ns1 is located **beside the current** namespace (i.e. both ns1 and the current namespace are beneath the same parent namespace, wherever according to the root namespace this parent may be located itself).|
|.ns1:ns2:\\ .:ns1:ns2:|refers to the page "start" in the namespace ns2. The namespace ns2 is located beneath the namespace ns1; the namespace ns1 is located beneath the current namespace.\\ \\ (The default page can be named something other than "start" by adjusting the  configuration setting.)|

:!: Gotcha: The syntax for relative and absolute internal links is non-unique and complex relative to directory and filename conventions.

Paths are absolute if and only if they begin with "/".

Links are absolute if and only if they have a ":" prefix or have no prefix but do have intermediate (or suffix) ":"

Links relative to the current namespace may also begin with either "." or ".:" (".." or "..:" for parent namespace).

===== Deleting Namespaces =====

When all pages inside a namespace are removed the namespace logically doesn’t exist anymore. DokuWiki usually deletes the now empty directory as well.

===== Delete a page =====

If you save an empty page, then DokuWiki will delete the page, and the associated pagename.