API:Client code

This page is part of the MediaWiki API documentation.

MediaWiki API

Quick overview:

• Quick start guide
• FAQ
  • Etiquette and usage limits
• Tutorial
• Formats
• Error reporting
• Restricting usage
• Cross-site requests
• Authentication
  • Login
  • Logout
  • Account creation
• Queries
  • Meta information
  • Properties
  • Lists
• Search suggestions
• Parsing wikitext and expanding templates
• Purging pages' caches
• Parameter information
• Changing wiki content
  • Create and edit pages
  • Move pages
  • Rollback
  • Delete pages
  • Restore deleted revisions
  • (Un)protect pages
  • (Un)block users
  • (Un)watch pages
  • Mark revisions of watched pages as visited
  • Send email
  • Patrol changes
  • Import pages
  • Change user group membership
  • Upload files
  • User options
  • Tokens
• Watchlist feed
• Wikidata
• Extensions
• Using the API in MediaWiki and extensions
• Miscellaneous
• Implementation
• Client code
• Asserting

API Access Libraries

Notes to library developers

• Please use GZip compression when making API calls (Accept-Encoding: gzip).
  

Bots eat up a lot of bandwidth, which is not free.

• You must set a descriptive User Agent header (User-Agent: User name/email/framework/...)
  

Please include your username and wiki or email address.

• You should attempt to minimize the number of API calls by asking for multiple items in one request. Use titles=PageA|PageB|PageC and get all the needed lists and properties at the same time. Only ask for what you actually need.
• We are planning to migrate to JSON-only API, removing all other formats like XML, YAML, and PHP.
• When querying, use the new continue parameter. (March 2013)

Bash

• See API:Client_code/Bash. Requires curl package.Smallman12q (talk) 00:02, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

C++

• libmediawiki. There is a tutorial in KDE TechBase.

Clojure

• cloki

Common Lisp

• cl-mediawiki is a Common Lisp wrapper for the mediawiki API. It is available as a direct download, or (more conveniently) via quicklisp.

Delphi/Object Pascal

• MediaWiki API Wrapper, based on ICS open-source sockets, with synchronous and asynchronous (event based) requests, requires the JEDI Code Library for dependencies.

Go

• go-mediawiki Go wrapper for the mediawiki API

Haskell

• http://hackage.haskell.org/package/mediawiki

Java

• Bliki Engine - Java Wikipedia API - very complete. Can convert wikicode to HTML, DocBook or PDF.
• JavaWikiBotFramework - a Java library that makes almost all API functions accessible.
• Wiki.java — a simple one-class API implementation
• WPCleaner — a Java editing tool that includes a package for MediaWiki API.

JavaScript

• https://github.com/macbre/nodemw - Node.js client.
• mediaWiki.Api - A ResourceLoader module that ships with MediaWiki core, abstracts many API logic calls into simple one liners.
• jQuery.ajax - Not specifically made for the MediaWiki API, but most queries are very simple with one or two lines of using $.getJSON( .. ) or $.ajax( .. ).
• JsMwApi A convenience wrapper around raw requests, with some helpers for editing and parsing.
• mwapilib - A kind of crappy layer overtop of the requests. Make JS gadgets easier.
• Luasóg - A framework of standard requests (e.g. log in, log out, read, edit, etc.) as well as a general wrapper method. Includes some helpful stuff like throttling. Project includes a rudimentary IDE for off-site development and execution.

.NET

• AutoWikiBrowser's WikiFunctions library has classes for editing and getting lists of pages via the API. See ApiEdit
• WikiAccess - a C#-library that makes some API functions accessible, has write API.
• DotNetWikiBot Framework - written in C#, based on Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0 (Tutorial)
• MorebitsDotNet contains C# code for uploading files through the API.
• LinqToWiki, strongly typed library for accessing most of MediaWiki API, with support for autocompletion

OCaml

• ocaml-mediawiki

Perl

• MediaWiki::API - A Perl module for interfacing with the MediaWiki API with file upload/download and editing support. (Debian package)
• MediaWiki::Bot - A higher-level Perl module with read and write functions. Easily extensible with plugins, for example to provide administrator functions.
  • Documentation Wikibook
  • Google Code project
  • Client scripts
• Perl MediaWiki API - An open source Perl module wrapping many of the MediaWiki API functions.

PHP

There are many PHP frameworks for the api, see here for a full list and comparison of frameworks.

• SxWiki - a lightweight, simple MediaWiki bot framework. (Unmaintained since 2008)
• Apibot - a modular, somewhat ambitious bot with overlayed UNIX-like framework
• wikibase-api-php - Specifically for querying Wikidata
• wikidrain - A wrapper for the WikiMedia API centralized around easily and simply querying Wikipedia articles. (Still actively being developed)

Python

• Pywikipediabot - A collection of python scripts. Seems up to date (Nov 2013) (IRC)
• mwclient - A Python library that makes most of the API functions accessible. (PyPI)
• wikitools - Provides several layers of abstraction around the API. Should be up to date (PyPI)
• simplemediawiki - A simple, no-abstraction interface to the API. Handles cookies and other extremely basic things. (PyPI)
• supersimplemediawiki - Very similar to simplemediawiki, except Python3 compatible. (PyPI)
• python-mwapi - A simple wrapper around the Mediawiki API, meant to closely mirror its interface. Last update: Dec 2012 (PyPI)
• Wikipedia -  A Python library that makes it easy to access and parse data from Wikipedia. (PyPI)

Ruby

• wikipedia-client - Ruby framework using the API.
• MediaWiki::Gateway - Ruby framework for the API. Maintained, tested up to MediaWiki 1.22, compatible with Wikimedia wikis.
• RWikiBot - a Ruby framework using the API. No releases since 2008.
• rbmediawiki - Another Ruby framework that uses the API. No releases since 2009.

Tcl

• MediaWiki Tcl Bot Framework, includes IRC-RC Interface

Support Matrix

A support-matrix of many of the actively developed packages from this page for some of the more used API features can be found on the Wikia API Wiki.

See Also

• Collection of bot libraries on Wikipedia, several of these use the API.