Manual:Externallinks table

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MediaWiki database layout

Externallinks table

The externallinks table is where MediaWiki stores and tracks external links. This table was introduced after 1.5.

+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field    | Type            | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| el_from  | int(8) unsigned | NO   | MUL | 0       |       |
| el_to    | blob            | NO   | MUL | NULL    |       |
| el_index | blob            | NO   | MUL | NULL    |       |
+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

The el_from is the page identifier of the referring wiki page. el_to is the actual URL itself and is passed to the browser, whilst el_index is the same URL search-optimised: username and password information is stripped, and the other components are reversed for faster searching, so http://user:password@sub.example.com/page.html becomes http://com.example.sub./page.html , which allows searches of the form 'Show all links pointing to *.example.com'.

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+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field    | Type            | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| el_from  | int(10) unsigned| NO   | MUL | 0       |       |
| el_to    | blob            | NO   | MUL | NULL    |       |
| el_index | blob            | NO   | MUL | NULL    |       |
+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field    | Type            | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| el_from  | int(8) unsigned |      | MUL | 0       |       |
| el_to    | blob            |      | MUL |         |       |
| el_index | blob            |      | MUL |         |       |
+----------+-----------------+------+-----+---------+-------+