Manual:Pywikibot/Overview

Pywikibot is a Python library and collection of tools that automate work on MediaWiki sites. Originally designed for Wikipedia, it is now used throughout the Wikimedia Foundation's projects and on many other MediaWiki wikis.

The project started in 2002 and is currently on core version 3.0.

It features full  usage and is up-to-date with new MediaWiki features and a Pythonic package layout.

But it also works with older installations of  or higher.

Pywikibot supports Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux when used with a compatible version of Python.

It should also work on any other operating system that has a compatible version of Python installed.

To check whether you have Python installed and to find its version, just type "python" at the CMD or shell prompt.

Python 2.7.4 or higher or Python 3.4 or higher is required to run the bot but 2.7.9 or 3.4 and higher is recommended due to the python package installer (pip) shipped with newer releases.

Components
Two master folders are present in the library archive:


 *   contains all the master files, that will interact with MediaWiki websites.

It's the master part of the library: they're used when you load PWB in your own Python scripts and when you launch plug-and-play tools.


 * <tvar|scripts> </> contains already written, known and proven scripts.

They are ready to be used. See the list and docs for each one in <tvar|scripts></>.

License
Here you can view the LICENSE files for [<tvar|url1>https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/PWBC/browse/master/LICENSE</> Pywikibot].

Other licenses

 * <tvar|1>pywikibot/userinterfaces/win32_unicode.py</> is based on code that is CC BY-SA 3.0.


 * <tvar|1>pywikibot/backports.py</> consists of code from PSF, and is licensed PSF 2.0.