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.

Access points

 * See also: Special:Version

These are the files that a browser may reach when using the wiki. All of them are located in the root directory of the wiki.

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Default location for the file cache, if enabled (by setting  — the default is  .). This location can be customized using $wgFileCacheDirectory.

Contains various text files that should help you understand the most important parts of the code of MediaWiki.

MediaWiki extensions are distributed separately from the core code. Installing an extension entails copying its files into this directory, and enabling it by following the extension's own installation instructions (usually editing the LocalSettings.php file). In current versions a set of several extensions is distributed with a fresh MediaWiki install.

This directory stores common include files needed by MediaWiki.

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.

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

This directory contains files with code relating to MediaWiki's caching mechanisms.

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 for more information.

This directory contains the code for database support.  provides MediaWiki's database abstraction layer.

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.

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.

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.

This directory contains files for handling several media formats, mostly images.

This directory contains some Unicode normalization routines. See for more information.

Files related to MediaWiki's caching mechanisms. The files in this directory provide the possibility to store objects in PHP accelerators, in memcached, in a database or in DBA files.

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

Files related to ResourceLoader, a JavaScript/CSS delivery optimizing system for MediaWiki.

This directory contains the code to implement the possibility of searching a wiki using one the possible backends.

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.

Files providing the backend of MediaWiki's file upload feature.

If uploads are enabled in the wiki, files will be put in subdirectories under this directory. See for more details.

This directory contains files used for localization and internationalization. For a quick overview, see Language in MediaWiki.

This directory contains maintenance scripts that must be run from a command line interface.

See for an overview of those scripts.

Entry point for the Config script (the helper script that helps setting up a newly installed wiki). The actual code of the installer is located at.

This directory contains JavaScript and CSS resources used by MediaWiki, including jQuery.

It also contains binary files like PNG and SVG images, for instance in : see.

Location for serialized objects (database entries converted into files -- see Serialization for more information). The database tables that contain serialized data are listed at.

This directory contain all skins classes, JavaScripts, CSS and some images used by that skins. See.

Contains various (unit)test related files, including:


 * for some core features
 * for some core features
 * for some core features
 * for some core features