Manual:Pywikibot/category.py

Script which manages categories. This needs Python with at least v2.4 (not v2.3) as stated on Using the python wikipediabot.

Syntax
The syntax is:  python category.py [global-arguments] action [-option]

where action can be one of these: * add        - mass-add a category to a list of pages * remove     - remove category tag from all pages in a category * move       - move all pages in a category to another category * tidy       - tidy up a category by moving its articles into subcategories * tree       - show a tree of subcategories of a given category * listify    - make a list of all of the articles that are in a category

and option can be one of these: * -person    - sort persons by their last name (for action 'add') * -rebuild   - reset the database * -from:     - The category to move from (for the move option) Also, the category to remove from in the remove option Also, the category to make a list of in the listify option * -to:       - The category to move to (for the move option) - Also, the name of the list to make in the listify option NOTE: If the category names have spaces in them you may need to use a special syntax in your shell so that the names aren't treated as        separate parameters. For instance, in BASH, use single quotes, e.g. -from:'Polar bears' * -batch     - Don't prompt to delete emptied categories (do it                 automatically). * -summary:  - Pick a custom edit summary for the bot. * -inplace   - Use this flag to change categories in place rather than rearranging them. * -nodelsum  - An option for remove, this specifies not to use the custom edit summary as the deletion reason. Instead, it uses the default deletion reason for the language, which is "Category                was disbanded" in English. * -overwrite - An option for listify, this overwrites the current page with the list even if something is already there. * -showimages - An option for listify, this displays images rather than linking them in the list. * -talkpages - An option for listify, this outputs the links to talk pages of the pages to be listified in addition to the pages themselves. * -recurse   - Recurse through all subcategories of categories. * -match     - Only work on pages whose titles match the given regex (for                 move and remove actions). * -create    - An option for add: if a page doesn't exist, do not skip it, create it instead

If action is "add", the following options are supported:

&params;

For the actions tidy and tree, the bot will store the category structure locally in category.dump. This saves time and server load, but if it uses these data later, they may be outdated; use the -rebuild parameter in this case.

Or to do it all from the command-line,

Adding category
If your list of pages is in a file, enter:  python category.py add -file:FILENAME

If you don't enter a filename, you will be prompted for a page that has the file list.

Follow the on-screen instructions - you will be prompted for the category name.

To create a new category from a list of persons, you will usually want them to be sorted alphabetically by last name (assuming Western surname conventions). E.g. Adding the "Artist" category to the page "Jane Smith", it would be added in the form. Type:  python category.py add -person

and follow the on-screen instructions.

Move category
If you want to move all pages in a category to another category, you could do the following:  category.py move

You will be prompted for the old category (that you also want to keep but enter it)  OldCategoryname

Enter the name of the category without the 'Category:' prefix.

You will now be prompted for the new category, now enter the old and new Category like this:  NewCategoryName

To do it all from the command-line, use the following syntax:  category.py move -from:"OldCategoryname" -to:"NewCategoryName"

For example, this syntax will move all pages in the category US to the category United States.  category.py move -from:US -to:'United States'