Proper Koha Notice Syntax

by Barton Chittenden on Feb 1, 2016

<item> </item>, wherefore art thou, item?

One of the issues that I see occurring on a regular basis are Koha advanced notices that show up with missing and garbled item detail.

The reason for this (not a particularly good reason, but a reason none-the-less) is that Koha advanced notices use a different syntax for specifying the item detail than overdue notices.

With overdue notices, the item detail is specified using opening and closing <item> tags like this:

<item>"<<biblio.title>>" by <<biblio.author>>, <<issues.date_due>>, Barcode: <<items.barcode>> </item>

Which might display in the overdue notice like this:

"Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett, 01/29/2016 23:59:59, Barcode: 31415926

The same code, when put into advanced notices, will show up like this:

<item>"" by , , Barcode: </item>

Instead, in advanced notices — which have the letter codes DUE, DUEDGST, PREDUE and PREDUEDGST, you must instead use

<<items.content>>

Which will expand to date, title, author, barcode — e.g.

01/29/2016 23:59:59, Small Gods, Terry Pratchett, 31415926

For a full list of the markup available in Koha Notices and Slips, see The notices and slips page on the Koha Wiki