API:Main page

 Attention visitors

This page describes the ongoing effort to provide a stable API within MediaWiki for convenient access to machine-readable data.

MediaWiki at present has four interfaces:
 * MediaWiki API - the new API described on these pages.
 * Query API - older API for retrieving data (obsolete).
 * Special:Export feature (bulk export of xml formatted data)
 * Regular Web-based interface

See the menu bar on the right for the API sub-topics.

The goal of this API is to provide direct, high-level access to the data contained in the MediaWiki databases. Client programs should be able to use the API to login, get data, and post changes. The API must support thin web-based JavaScript clients, such as Navigation popups or LiveRC, end-user applications (such as vandal fighter), or be accessed by another web site (tool server's utilities).

All output will be available in a structured tree format such as XML, JSON, YAML, WDDX, or PHP serialized. A strongly typed RSS or WSDL-style format might also be implemented using wrappers.

Each API module uses a set of parameters. To prevent name collision, each module has a two letter abbreviation, and each parameter name begins with those two letters.


 * Mailing List for notifications and questions: API mailing list
 * View and report API bugs: BugZilla (When reporting new bugs, don't forget to set Component=API)

Useful Links

 * API source code in SVN
 * Proposed Database Schema Changes
 * Database layout
 * The current DB schema in SVN

Archive

 * API:Wikimania 2006 API discussion