[WARNING] Don't use dumpgenerator.py with API

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

It's completely broken:
https://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/issues/detail?id=56
It will download only a fraction of the wiki, 500 pages at most per
namespace.

Let me reiterate that
https://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/issues/detail?id=44 is a very urgent
bug and we've seen no work on it in many months. We need an actual
programmer with some knowledge of python to fix it and make the script
work properly; I know there are several on this list (and elsewhere),
please please help. The last time I, as a non-coder, tried to fix a bug,
I made things worse
(https://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/issues/detail?id=26).

Only after API is implemented/fixed, I'll be able to re-archive the 4-5
thousands wikis we've recently archived on archive.org
(https://archive.org/details/wikiteam) and possibly many more. Many of
those dumps contain errors and/or are just partial because of the
script's unreliability, and wikis die on a daily basis. (So, quoting
emijrp, there IS a deadline.)

Nemo

P.s.: Cc'ing some lists out of desperation; sorry for cross-posting.

[Hydriz Wikipedia]

Hi all,

I am beginning work on a port to PHP due to some issues regarding unit testing for another project of mine (if you follow me on GitHub, you will know). I hope to help out with fixing the script, but it is a good idea to get someone who knows python (pywikipedia-l people) and the MediaWiki API (mediawiki-api people) to help.

--

Regards,

Hydriz

We've created the greatest collection of shared knowledge in history. Help protect Wikipedia. Donate now: http://donate.wikimedia.org

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Hydriz Wikipedia, 09/11/2012 16:59:
> You mentioned "a while back" for "apcontinue", show recent was it? This
> dump generator is attempting to archive all sorts of versions of
> MediaWiki, or so unless we write a backward compatibility handler in the
> script itself.

+1
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Allpages ,
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Lists and
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Query#Continuing_queries don't really
shed any light.

> ...and I agree, the code is in a total mess. We need to get someone to
> rewrite the whole thing, soon.

Well, that in an ideal world. In this one, the best would probably be
suggestions for simple libraries to be used to solve such small
problems? (Which can become very big if one doesn't follow API evolution
very closely or know it's history from the beginning of time.)

Nemo

> On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 11:50 PM, Brad Jorsch wrote:
>
> You're searching for the continue parameter as "apfrom", but this was
> changed to "apcontinue" a while back. Changing line 162 to something
> like this should probably do it:
>
> m = re.findall(r'<allpages (?:apfrom|apcontinue)="([^>]+)" />',
> xml)
>
> Note that for full correctness, you probably should omit both apfrom
> and apcontinue entirely from params the first time around, and send
> back whichever of the two is found by the above line in subsequent
> queries.
>
> Also, why in the world aren't you using an XML parser (or a JSON
> parser with format=json) to process the API response instead of trying
> to parse the XML using regular expressions?!

>
> On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 2:27 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
> <nemo...@gmail.com <mailto:nemo...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > It's completely broken:
> > https://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/issues/detail?id=56
> > It will download only a fraction of the wiki, 500 pages at most per
> > namespace.
>

> _______________________________________________
> Mediawiki-api mailing list
> Mediaw...@lists.wikimedia.org
> <mailto:Mediaw...@lists.wikimedia.org>
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-api

>
>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Hydriz
>
> We've created the greatest collection of shared knowledge in history.
> Help protect Wikipedia. Donate now: http://donate.wikimedia.org

> <http://donate.wikimedia.org/>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mediawiki-api mailing list
> Mediaw...@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-api
>

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Brad Jorsch, 09/11/2012 17:30:

> On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Hydriz Wikipedia <ad...@alphacorp.tk> wrote:
>>
>> You mentioned "a while back" for "apcontinue", show recent was it? This dump
>> generator is attempting to archive all sorts of versions of MediaWiki, or so
>> unless we write a backward compatibility handler in the script itself.
>

> July 2012: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-api-announce/2012-July/000030.html
>
> Any wiki running version 1.19, or a 1.20 snapshot from before
> mid-July, would be returning the old parameter. If you do it right,
> though, there's little you have to do. Just use whichever keys are
> given you inside the <query-continue> node. Even with your regular
> expression mess, just capture which key is given as well as the value
> and use it as the key for your params dict.

Thank you again for your useful suggestions!
However, as already noted,
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Query#Continuing_queries doesn't give
any info about supported releases.

Nemo

P.s.: Small unreliable "temporary" things in MediaWiki, like the
"powered by MediaWiki" sentence we grep for, are usually the most
permanent ones, although I don't like it.

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Brad Jorsch, 09/11/2012 18:01:

> On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, that in an ideal world. In this one, the best would probably be
>> suggestions for simple libraries to be used to solve such small problems?
>

> Since you're using Python, pywikipedia is usually the go-to library.
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Pywikipediabot

Thank you, looks like they can indeed help us.

>
> On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 8:52 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> However, as already noted,
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Query#Continuing_queries doesn't give any
>> info about supported releases.
>

> Perhaps it could be made more clear in the doc (I think I'll go fix
> that now), but clients shouldn't be depending on the particular keys
> given inside the query-continue node beyond identifying which one
> belongs to the generator.

Thank you very much for expanding the page.
Was the query-continue node the same since the beginning of the API?
It may be obvious to you but it's not written anywhere I think, please
stick a {{MW 1.12}} or whatever there if it's so.

Nemo

[emijrp]

I have not read all this thread, but just fixed the issue 56. That suckers changed "apfrom" to "apcontinue", so I added both possibilities.

Line 162 https://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/source/diff?spec=svn806&r=806&format=side&path=/trunk/dumpgenerator.py

2012/11/9 Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemo...@gmail.com>

--

Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada

http://LibreFind.org - The wiki search engine

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

emijrp, 09/11/2012 19:57:

> I have not read all this thread, but just fixed the issue 56. That
> suckers changed "apfrom" to "apcontinue", so I added both possibilities.

Thanks!

Nemo

[Scott Boyd]

At this link: https://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/issues/detail?id=56 , at the bottom, there is an entry by project member nemowiki that states:

     Comment 7 by project member nemowiki, Today (9 hours ago)

    Fixed by emijrp in r806. :-)

      Status: Fixed

So does that mean this problem that "It's completely broken" is now fixed? I'm running a huge download of 64K+ page titles, and am now using the "r806" version of dumpgenerator.py. The first 35K+ page titles were downloaded with an older version). Both versions sure seem to be downloading MORE than 500 pages per namespace, but I'm not sure, since I don't know how you can tell if you are getting them all...

So is it fixed or not?

[Hydriz Wikipedia]

Scott,

Nemo is referring to the dumpgenerator.py being broken on MediaWiki versions above 1.20, and it should not actually affect older MediaWiki versions.

You can safely continue with your grab. :)

[Scott Boyd]

OK - thanks for the quick reply.

Scott

--
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Professional Transportation, Inc.
Cell: 682-465-5039