Manual:Index.php/en

index.php is the main access point for a MediaWiki site. The other main access point is which handles requests for the MediaWiki.

Actions taken
Most requests result in the following actions in :


 * 1) First, it includes, which includes  and.
 * 2) Next it instantiates a MediaWiki object called  which is defined in.
 * 3) It then checks the maxlag parameter, which may cause the request to be rejected.
 * 4) It calls the function   in, which creates a  object depending of the title and action parameters from the URL.
 * 5) If ajax is enabled and the   parameter is set to , then an  object will be created to handle that request and the script will stop after that.
 * 6) Otherwise some globals are stored in  to be used in the next steps.
 * 7) It calls   which does most of the work of the request.
 * 8) Then   is called.  That function does the deferred updates, runs jobs from the queue depending on  and outputs the HTML by calling.
 * 9) Finally,   is called to log profiling data.

Version 1.18 and higher
As of MediaWiki version 1.18, some of the startup logic has been moved from index.php, and index.php performs the following actions:
 * 1) Check the version of PHP and if its not 5.2.3 or higher, display an error.
 * 2) Include, which in turn includes , and some other files.
 * 3) Instantiate a MediaWiki object called, which is defined in.
 * 4) Call.