Extension:External Data

The External Data extension allows MediaWiki pages to retrieve, filter, and format structured data from one or more sources. These sources can include external URLs and SOAP services, regular wiki pages, uploaded files, files on the local server, databases, LDAP directories and local programs output.

The extension defines the following :
 * Data retrieval and handling functions, which set local variables and then display, store or clear them:
 * #external_value - displays the value of any such variable.
 * #for_external_table - cycles through all the values retrieved for a set of variables, displaying the same "container" text for each one.
 * #display_external_table - cycles through all the values retrieved for a set of variables, displaying each "row" using a template.
 * #format_external_table - available only if Cargo is installed. Formats the retrieved external data the same way as #cargo_query.
 * #store_external_table - cycles through a table of values, storing them as semantic data via the Semantic MediaWiki extension, by mimicking a call to SMW's #subobject function for each row.
 * #clear_external_data - erases the current set of retrieved data.
 * In backward compatibility mode the extension also defines data retrieval functions, which set local variables available with wikipage scope that can later be displayed using the above functions:
 * #get_web_data - retrieves CSV, GFF, JSON, YAML, XML, HTML, ini, or free-form data from a URL and assigns it to variables that can be accessed on the page.
 * #get_soap_data - retrieves data from a URL via the SOAP protocol.
 * #get_file_data - retrieves data from a file on the local server, in the same formats as #get_web_data.
 * #get_db_data - retrieves data from a database.
 * #get_ldap_data - retrieves data from an LDAP server.
 * #get_program_data - retrieves data returned by a program run server-side.
 * #get_inline_data - parses data passed to it, in the same formats as #get_web_data.

It also defines a Lua function that retrieves data and returns it as Lua table.

In compatibility mode, the following additional Lua functions are also defined (there is one-to-one correspondence between parser functions retrieving data and Lua functions evident from their names):

In tag emulation mode, the wiki site administrator can define additional parser tags.

This version of the External Data extension requires MediaWiki 1.29 or higher.

Click through the pages in the navigation bar above to learn more about External Data, how it works, how to use it, and how to install it.