Manual:importImages.php

MediaWiki file: importImages.php
Location:	maintenance/
Source code:	master • 1.31.1 • 1.30.1
Classes:	Find code • Find documentation

importImages.php is a script which uploads images to MediaWiki from the same computer where the wiki is configured. It doesn't do a remote upload.

If you plan on importing the file descriptions on the image pages too, then you should do that before you run importImages.php. Otherwise, those file descriptions will be buried underneath the import in the page history. If you make this mistake, then you can fix it with a bot script such as FixFileDescriptionPagesBot.php .

Examples

Upload with default comment "Importing file"

php maintenance/importImages.php /path/to/images/directory

Upload with comment "[[Category:Sunflowers in full bloom]]"

php maintenance/importImages.php /path/to/images/directory --comment="[[Category:Sunflowers_in_full_bloom]]"

Importimages.php will not search and upload images in sub-directories (directory recursion) by default

An example of what a successful import of one image (Foo.jpg) looks like:

root@f345:/home/t/public_html/mywikisite/public/w/maintenance# php importImages.php /home/t/public_html/import --extensions=svg,png,jpg,jpeg,gif,bmp,SVG,PNG,JPG,JPEG,GIF,BMP Import Images Importing Foo.jpg...done. Found: 1 Added: 1 root@f345:/home/t/public_html/mywikisite/public/w/maintenance#

It is probably a good idea to run this script as the apache user (Commonly either apache or www-data). Otherwise the uploaded files will be owned by the person who ran the script, which may prevent MediaWiki from being able to move, delete, or otherwise manipulate the files later on.

Arguments

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.21

$ php importImages.php
Import Images

Imports images and other media files into the wiki
USAGE: php importImages.php [options] <dir>

<dir> : Path to the directory containing images to be imported

Options:
--extensions=<exts>     Comma-separated list of allowable extensions, defaults
                        to $wgFileExtensions.
--overwrite             Overwrite existing images with the same name (default
                        is to skip them).
--limit=<num>           Limit the number of images to process. Ignored or
                        skipped images are not counted.
--from=<name>           Ignore all files until the one with the given name.
                        Useful for resuming aborted imports. <name> should be
                        the file's canonical database form.
--skip-dupes            Skip images that were already uploaded under a different
                        name (check SHA1)
--search-recursively    Search recursively for files in subdirectories.
--sleep=<sec>           Sleep between files. Useful mostly for debugging.
--user=<username>       Set username of uploader, default 'Maintenance script'.
--check-userblock       Check if the user got blocked during import.
--comment=<text>        Set file description, default 'Importing file'.
--comment-file=<file>   Set description to the content of <file>.
--comment-ext=<ext>     Causes the description for each file to be loaded from a
                        file with the same name, but the extension <ext>. If a
                        global description is also given, it is appended.
--license=<code>        Use an optional license template.
--dry                   Dry run, don't import anything.
--protect=<protect>     Specify the protect value (autoconfirmed,sysop).
--summary=<summary>     Upload summary, description will be used if not
                        provided.
--timestamp=<timestamp> Override upload time/date, all MediaWiki timestamp
                        formats are accepted.
--unprotect             Unprotects all uploaded images.
--source-wiki-url       If specified, take User and Comment data for each
                        imported file from this URL. For example,
                        --source-wiki-url="http://en.wikipedia.org/."

"--comment-ext" defines a file extension like ".meta" that contains the file comment, i.e. the content of the wiki-metadata-page associated with each imported file. This supports per-file metadata, whereas the --comment option supports only per-import metadata. The value of --comment-ext works with or without a leading dot (.meta as well as meta), the value may be quoted or not. The associated file is searched both as appended and substituted extension. Thus, importing x.jpg and setting "--comment-ext meta" or "--comment-ext=meta" either of x.meta or x.jpg.meta will be used to set the initial metadata page (i.e. the page shown for File:x.jpg).

The "canonical database form" required by "--from" is obtained from the file name by capitalizing the first letter, replacing all spaces with underscores, and then replacing multiple consecutive underscores with one underscore. For example, to start with the file someFile with __weird_ spaces.png, the correct argument would be --from=SomeFile_with_weird_spaces.png

Common error messages

Does not find the picture to upload

Example where the script doesn't find any picture to upload:

vi-notebook:/var/lib/mediawiki1.7# php maintenance/importImages.php /store/wiki/absurd_pic jpg
Import Images

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /usr/share/mediawiki1.7/maintenance/importImages.php on line 34

Incorrect folder path

t@f66677:~/public_html/dead.com/public/w/maintenance$ php importImages.php /m gif bmp PNG JPG GIF BMP
Import Images

No suitable files could be found for import.

Usually this is because the path to the folder is incorrect.

Upload failed error

login as: ideakwty ideakwty@164.413.451.184's password: [ideakwty@server98 ~]$ cd public_html/youareapuppet.com/mw/maintenance [ideakwty@server98 maintenance]$ php importImages.php /public_html/TO svg png jpg jpeg gif bmp SVG PNG JPG JPEG GIF BMP Import Images No suitable files could be found for import. [ideakwty@server98 maintenance]$

"No suitable files could be found for import." error when user does not have the privileges to upload the pictures

The following error can be caused by two issues:

1. Directory permissions needs to be changed, and/or
2. user does not have the privileges to upload the pictures

Problem 1: Directory permissions needs to be changed

Solution: Change directory's mode

changing chmod in winSCP

1. chmod four folders to 777:
   1. images,
   2. images/temp,
   3. images/thumb and
   4. images/archive
2. If it hasn't already been done, in LocalSettings.php, uncomment the line $wgHashedUploadDirectory = false; by removing the # in front of the line.

Problem 2: user does not have the privileges to upload the pictures

Solution: switch users or change user upload privileges.

Skipping existing pictures

By default, ImportImages.php will not overwrite pictures. If a picture with the same name already exists on the wiki, you will get this error:

php importImages.php /home gif bmp PNG JPG GIF BMP
Import Images

Dadtest.jpg exists, skipping

Found: 1
Skipped: 1

To overwrite any images type:

php importImages.php /home gif bmp PNG JPG GIF BMP --overwrite

The result will be:

Import Images

Dadtest.jpg exists, overwriting...done.

Found: 1
Overwritten: 1

See also

• Extension:SpecialUploadLocal
• importDump.php - for importing pages
• dumpBackup.php - for exporting pages