Alternative parsers

This page is a list of links, descriptions, and status reports of the various alternative MediaWiki parsers - that is, programs and projects, other than MediaWiki itself, which are able or intended to translate MediaWiki's text markup syntax into something else. Some of these have quite narrow purposes, others are possible contenders for replacing the somewhat labyrinthine code that currently drives MediaWiki itself.

Many of the things linked here are likely to be out of date and under-maintained, even abandoned. But in the interest of not duplicating the same work over and over, it seemed sensible to collect together what was "out there".

Related topics

• One-pass parser
• MediaWiki lexer and MediaWiki flexer (not parsers as such, just grammar definitions; probably superceded by/within other projects below)
• w:en:Wikipedia:Text editor support includes various scripts and extensions for things like syntax highlighting for things like EMACS, Vim, and all sorts; some of these may include rudimentary parsing capabilities.
• Here are some proof of concept rules for a subset of the Mediawiki markup: these are written in a metalanguage that treats preformatted text as source text, and everything else as comment.

A non-parser dumper

One of the common uses of alternative parsers is to dump wiki content into static form, such as HTML or PDF. Tim Starling has written a script which isn't a parser, but uses the MediaWiki internal code to dump an entire wiki to HTML, from the command-line. See dumpHTML.php and dumpHTML.inc in the MediaWiki CVS repository. This has been used (years ago) to create the static dumps at http://static.wikipedia.org

Known implementations

Name and link	Principal author(s)	Language	Input	Output	Comments / other info
Mediawiki2HTML Machine	Johannes Buchner	PHP	Markup	HTML	New project for parsing without the Mediawiki engine.
Eclipse Wikipedia Plugin	axelcl	Java	Markup fragment	On-screen preview, HTML, PDF	Plugin for the Eclipse IDE for assisted editing of Wikipedia (and anything else MediaWiki-based)
FlexBisonParse	Timwi	flex, bison and C	Markup fragment	Custom XML	Intended as an eventual replacement to the parsing code inside MediaWiki itself
Live Preview	Pilaf	JavaScript	Markup fragment	HTML	Provides instant preview while editing a page (without reloading). Note: name change pending.
Magnus' magic wiki-to-XML converter	Magnus Manske	PHP	Markup fragment or list of article titles	Custom XML, plain text, DocBook XML	Feature-complete parser (except math and timeline); pure PHP, so slow but portable. Can directly generate PDFs if DocBook infrastructure is installed
Perl MediaWiki Emulator	Victor Porton	Perl	Markup fragment	(X)HTML+	Perl MediaWiki formatter developed for Keywords Homepages. (Little functional, but developing as of 30 March 2005.)
	Head	Java	SQL dump	HTML
Tero-dump	Tero Karvinen	?	Local wiki install.ation, including MySQL, PHP, web server	HTML	Scripts for grabbing the whole wiki; does not include images.
TomeRaider export	Erik Zachte	Perl	XML dump	TomeRaider database	See en:Wikipedia:TomeRaider database for more details
Waikiki	Magnus Manske	C++	SQL dump (via SQLite)	HTML	abandoned in favour of "flexbisonparse", but has been used inside some experimental "front ends"
Wikiwyg	Jim Higson	JavaScript	A live installation of MediaWiki	HTML (via XML)	More than just a parser; attempts to create a fully functional client-side interface
wiki2PDF	Stephan Walter	Python (and PHP)	Markup fragment or set of online articles	LaTeX, PDF	Project is incomplete and dormant
wiki2static	Alfio Puglisi	Perl	SQL dump	HTML	Used during 2004 to generate static html dumps of various languages, now taken offline. Development ceased.
Wiki2XML	Magnus Manske	C++	Markup fragment (?)	Custom XML	Another aborted project on the way to 'flexbisonparse'
HTML2FPDF	Renato A. C.	PHP	A PHP class that transforms HTML into a feed for FPDF resulting in a PDF file	HTML -> HTML2FPDF -> FPDF -> PDF	Not specifically for Mediawiki, but easy to install using an updated version of this tool:updated html2fpdf.php. See HTML2FPDF and Mediawiki for more instructions.
WikiOnCD	Andrew Rodland	Perl	SQL Dump or markup	HTML, Parse tree (eventually?)	Started out as an offline wiki browser, but grew a parser when Wiki2static turned out to be too limiting. No web presence yet; code is in the SVN.
WikiPress Publisher	Erwin Jurschitza	Delphi 7	XML dump	DocBook XML, Digibib XML, HTML	Used for the German DVD, generates lists of bad markup.