Template:=
=
Documentation
This provides an equals sign (=) for use in contexts where that character would otherwise be interpreted as part of wiki markup syntax (for example, in template calls).
Any input to the template is ignored.
The template is actually not called if {{=}} is used, because that exact string is handled "natively" by MediaWiki. (This is why there are so few pages that show up as using this template, even though {{=}} is being used on hundreds of pages.)
The examples below show a couple of ways of forcing a call to the template.
Usage
{{=}}
Examples
{{=}}⇒ ={{=|}}⇒ ={{Template:=}}⇒ =
The first example uses the built-in feature; the second and third actually call this template. (In the second example, empty input is being passed to the template in the first unnamed/positional parameter). All three examples are totally equivalent in terms of their effects, except the first is a bit more efficient than the other two.
Here's a more useful example:
{{code|style{{=}}"color:red"}}⇒style="color:red"
The {{=}} is necessary here because the following doesn't do the right thing:
{{code|style="color:red"}}⇒code
Here the equals sign is interpreted as separating the name of a template parameter (style) from its value (the rest). Since the {{code}} template doesn't look for a parameter called style, the input ends up being ignored.
Note that another way of doing this right is to use an explicit name for the first positional parameter:
{{code|1=style="color:red"}}⇒style="color:red"
