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title: Error and Warning Codes
---

# Error and Warning Codes

This page is being developed to help provide more detailed information on error messages. As of now, only a few items are populated.

## Placeholders

Many patterns have placeholders of the form {0}. The number of these placeholders is determined by the pattern. You can see errors like the following if the placeholders are not right.

![image](../images/translation/Screen-Shot-2020-07-24-at-08.50.09.png)

The error message will show which placeholders are expected, with an uppercase placeholder name for each possible placeholder, such as **{0}={CASE}** above, and a sample or ‹explanation› of what will go into the placeholder, such as **‹noun phrase in this case›**. Here are some more details on the kinds of errors you might see:


|   |   |   |
|---|---|---|
| gapsInPlaceholderNumbers | Placeholders have to be strictly ascending order, such as  **... {0} ... {1} ...  {2} ...** . If you have the right number of placeholders, but the wrong numbers, you'll see this error. NOTE: the placeholders can be in any position, s o  **...  {2} ... {0} ... {1}  ...** is ok. |  |
| duplicatePlaceholders | A few patterns, such as minimal pairs, may allow for duplicate placeholders, such as **{0} abc {0} def** . All others disallow duplicates; for them you may see this error. |  |
| missingPlaceholders | A few patterns allow for placeholders to be omitted. All others have to have all of the required placeholders ; for them you may see this error. |  |
| extraPlaceholders | Occasionally people add too many placeholders: they supply a **{1}** when only **{0}** is allowed. |  |
| invalidPlaceHolder | If you have a malformed placeholder, like **{0$}** , you'll see this message. The placeholders have exactly 1 digit, and so must be of the form **{0}** , **{1}** , **... {9}** |  |

**Warning: Some of the more complicated cases are the MinimalPairs**

They allow for, and often need, duplicate placeholders.

- For plurals and ordinals, make sure to read [Determining Plural Categories](/index/cldr-spec/plural-rules#TOC-Determining-Plural-Categories).
- For case and gender, make sure read [Grammatical Inflection](/translation/grammatical-inflection).