Manual:Code

This page describes key files and directories in the MediaWiki source code. For more detailed information, see the class, file and comprehensive references auto-generated from the MediaWiki source code using doxygen.

Directory /includes/
This directory stores common include files needed by MediaWiki.

Directory /includes/actions/
This directory contains the Action classes, which handle the different actions which can be performed on pages (e.g. view, delete, edit, etc.). All these classes extend the,   or   classes. Some of them are just stubs which call methods in the  or   classes to do the actual work.

Directory /includes/api/
This directory contains the code for the MediaWiki API. See API:Main page. The most important files are:

Directory /includes/cache/
This directory contains files with code relating to MediaWiki's caching mechanisms.

Directory /includes/context/
This directory contains a few classes related to (request)contexts. As of MediaWiki 1.18 the context of a request is encapsulated inside a  instance which implements. A context is a way of grouping the parts of a request together. This reduces the need for globals. See Manual:RequestContext for more information.

Directory /includes/db/
This directory contains the code for database support. Database.php provides MediaWiki's database abstraction layer.

Directory /includes/diff/
This directory contains the standard MediaWiki difference engine. A difference engine computes the difference between two texts. Whether this difference engine is used or some external diff tool, depends on the $wgExternalDiffEngine setting.

Directory /includes/job/
Files related to the job queue. Each job class for a specific type of job derives from the  class and has to implement a   method which does the actual job.

Directory /includes/logging/</tt>
Some files related to logging the events which happen on a Wiki. This directory was introduced in MW 1.19. Some of the files were already present in olders versions, in the includes/ directory.

Directory /includes/media/</tt>
This directory contains files for handling several media formats, mostly images.

Directory /includes/normal/</tt>
This directory contains some Unicode normalization routines. See includes/normal/README for more information.

Directory /includes/parser/</tt>
The MediaWiki parser, which transforms wikitext to HTML, can be found here together with related files. The most interesting files in this directory:

Directory /includes/specials/</tt>
This directory contains the code and classes for the standard special pages. All special page classes derive from class  (defined in includes/SpecialPage.php). Special pages which come with extension are located in their respective extensions directories. See also Manual:Special pages.

Directory /languages/</tt>
This directory contains files used for localization and internationalization. For a quick overview see Language in MediaWiki.

Directory /maintenance/</tt>
This directory contains maintenance scripts that must be run from a command line interface.

See Manual:Maintenance scripts for an overview of those scripts.

Directory /skins/</tt>
This directory contain all skins classes, JavaScripts, CSS and some images used by that skins.