Wikipedia API¶

Wikipedia-API is easy to use Python wrapper for Wikipedias’ API. It supports extracting texts, sections, links, categories, translations, etc from Wikipedia. Documentation provides code snippets for the most common use cases.

Installation¶

This package requires at least Python 3.4 to install because it’s using IntEnum.

pip3 install wikipedia-api

Usage¶

Goal of Wikipedia-API is to provide simple and easy to use API for retrieving informations from Wikipedia. Bellow are examples of common use cases.

Importing¶

import wikipediaapi

How To Get Single Page¶

Getting single page is straightforward. You have to initialize Wikipedia object and ask for page by its name. To initialize it, you have to provide:

user_agent to identify your project. Please follow the recommended format.
language to specify language mutation. It has to be one of supported languages.

import wikipediaapi
    wiki_wiki = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia('MyProjectName (merlin@example.com)', 'en')

    page_py = wiki_wiki.page('Python_(programming_language)')

How To Check If Wiki Page Exists¶

For checking, whether page exists, you can use function exists.

page_py = wiki_wiki.page('Python_(programming_language)')
print("Page - Exists: %s" % page_py.exists())
# Page - Exists: True

page_missing = wiki_wiki.page('NonExistingPageWithStrangeName')
print("Page - Exists: %s" %     page_missing.exists())
# Page - Exists: False

How To Get Page Summary¶

Class WikipediaPage has property summary, which returns description of Wiki page.

import wikipediaapi
    wiki_wiki = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia('MyProjectName (merlin@example.com)', 'en')

    print("Page - Title: %s" % page_py.title)
    # Page - Title: Python (programming language)

    print("Page - Summary: %s" % page_py.summary[0:60])
    # Page - Summary: Python is a widely used high-level programming language for

How To Get Page URL¶

WikipediaPage has two properties with URL of the page. It is fullurl and canonicalurl.

print(page_py.fullurl)
# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)

print(page_py.canonicalurl)
# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)

How To Get Full Text¶

To get full text of Wikipedia page you should use property text which constructs text of the page as concatanation of summary and sections with their titles and texts.

wiki_wiki = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia(
    user_agent='MyProjectName (merlin@example.com)',
        language='en',
        extract_format=wikipediaapi.ExtractFormat.WIKI
)

p_wiki = wiki_wiki.page("Test 1")
print(p_wiki.text)
# Summary
# Section 1
# Text of section 1
# Section 1.1
# Text of section 1.1
# ...


wiki_html = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia(
    user_agent='MyProjectName (merlin@example.com)',
        language='en',
        extract_format=wikipediaapi.ExtractFormat.HTML
)
p_html = wiki_html.page("Test 1")
print(p_html.text)
# <p>Summary</p>
# <h2>Section 1</h2>
# <p>Text of section 1</p>
# <h3>Section 1.1</h3>
# <p>Text of section 1.1</p>
# ...

How To Get Page Sections¶

To get all top level sections of page, you have to use property sections. It returns list of WikipediaPageSection, so you have to use recursion to get all subsections.

def print_sections(sections, level=0):
        for s in sections:
                print("%s: %s - %s" % ("*" * (level + 1), s.title, s.text[0:40]))
                print_sections(s.sections, level + 1)


print_sections(page_py.sections)
# *: History - Python was conceived in the late 1980s,
# *: Features and philosophy - Python is a multi-paradigm programming l
# *: Syntax and semantics - Python is meant to be an easily readable
# **: Indentation - Python uses whitespace indentation, rath
# **: Statements and control flow - Python's statements include (among other
# **: Expressions - Some Python expressions are similar to l

How To Get Page Section By Title¶

To get last section of page with given title, you have to use function section_by_title. It returns the last WikipediaPageSection with this title.

section_history = page_py.section_by_title('History')
print("%s - %s" % (section_history.title, section_history.text[0:40]))

# History - Python was conceived in the late 1980s b

How To Get All Page Sections By Title¶

To get all sections of page with given title, you have to use function sections_by_title. It returns the all WikipediaPageSection with this title.

    page_1920 = wiki_wiki.page('1920')
    sections_january = page_1920.sections_by_title('January')
    for s in sections_january:
        print("* %s - %s" % (s.title, s.text[0:40]))

# * January - January 1
# Polish–Soviet War in 1920: The
# * January - January 2
# Isaac Asimov, American author
# * January - January 1 – Zygmunt Gorazdowski, Polish

How To Get Page In Other Languages¶

If you want to get other translations of given page, you should use property langlinks. It is map, where key is language code and value is WikipediaPage.

def print_langlinks(page):
        langlinks = page.langlinks
        for k in sorted(langlinks.keys()):
            v = langlinks[k]
            print("%s: %s - %s: %s" % (k, v.language, v.title, v.fullurl))

print_langlinks(page_py)
# af: af - Python (programmeertaal): https://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programmeertaal)
# als: als - Python (Programmiersprache): https://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(Programmiersprache)
# an: an - Python: https://an.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python
# ar: ar - بايثون: https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%AB%D9%88%D9%86
# as: as - পাইথন: https://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AA%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%87%E0%A6%A5%E0%A6%A8

page_py_cs = page_py.langlinks['cs']
print("Page - Summary: %s" % page_py_cs.summary[0:60])
# Page - Summary: Python (anglická výslovnost [ˈpaiθtən]) je vysokoúrovňový sk

How To Get Links To Other Pages¶

If you want to get all links to other wiki pages from given page, you need to use property links. It’s map, where key is page title and value is WikipediaPage.

def print_links(page):
        links = page.links
        for title in sorted(links.keys()):
            print("%s: %s" % (title, links[title]))

print_links(page_py)
# 3ds Max: 3ds Max (id: ??, ns: 0)
# ?:: ?: (id: ??, ns: 0)
# ABC (programming language): ABC (programming language) (id: ??, ns: 0)
# ALGOL 68: ALGOL 68 (id: ??, ns: 0)
# Abaqus: Abaqus (id: ??, ns: 0)
# ...

How To Get Page Categories¶

If you want to get all categories under which page belongs, you should use property categories. It’s map, where key is category title and value is WikipediaPage.

def print_categories(page):
        categories = page.categories
        for title in sorted(categories.keys()):
            print("%s: %s" % (title, categories[title]))


print("Categories")
print_categories(page_py)
# Category:All articles containing potentially dated statements: ...
# Category:All articles with unsourced statements: ...
# Category:Articles containing potentially dated statements from August 2016: ...
# Category:Articles containing potentially dated statements from March 2017: ...
# Category:Articles containing potentially dated statements from September 2017: ...

How To Get All Pages From Category¶

To get all pages from given category, you should use property categorymembers. It returns all members of given category. You have to implement recursion and deduplication by yourself.

def print_categorymembers(categorymembers, level=0, max_level=1):
        for c in categorymembers.values():
            print("%s: %s (ns: %d)" % ("*" * (level + 1), c.title, c.ns))
            if c.ns == wikipediaapi.Namespace.CATEGORY and level < max_level:
                print_categorymembers(c.categorymembers, level=level + 1, max_level=max_level)


cat = wiki_wiki.page("Category:Physics")
print("Category members: Category:Physics")
print_categorymembers(cat.categorymembers)

# Category members: Category:Physics
# * Statistical mechanics (ns: 0)
# * Category:Physical quantities (ns: 14)
# ** Refractive index (ns: 0)
# ** Vapor quality (ns: 0)
# ** Electric susceptibility (ns: 0)
# ** Specific weight (ns: 0)
# ** Category:Viscosity (ns: 14)
# *** Brookfield Engineering (ns: 0)

How To See Underlying API Call¶

If you have problems with retrieving data you can get URL of undrerlying API call. This will help you determine if the problem is in the library or somewhere else.

import wikipediaapi
import sys
wikipediaapi.log.setLevel(level=wikipediaapi.logging.DEBUG)

# Set handler if you use Python in interactive mode
out_hdlr = wikipediaapi.logging.StreamHandler(sys.stderr)
out_hdlr.setFormatter(wikipediaapi.logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s %(message)s'))
out_hdlr.setLevel(wikipediaapi.logging.DEBUG)
wikipediaapi.log.addHandler(out_hdlr)

wiki = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia(user_agent='MyProjectName (merlin@example.com)', language='en')

page_ostrava = wiki.page('Ostrava')
print(page_ostrava.summary)
# logger prints out: Request URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=extracts&titles=Ostrava&explaintext=1&exsectionformat=wiki

External Links¶

Other Badges¶

Other Pages¶

API¶

Wikipedia¶

__init__(user_agent: str, language='en', extract_format=ExtractFormat.WIKI, headers: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None, **kwargs)
page(title)

WikipediaPage¶

exists()
pageid
title - title
summary - summary of the page
text - returns text of the page
sections - list of all sections (list of WikipediaPageSection)
langlinks - language links to other languages ({lang: WikipediaLangLink})
section_by_title(name) - finds last section by title (WikipediaPageSection)
sections_by_title(name) - finds all section by title (WikipediaPageSection)
links - links to other pages ({title: WikipediaPage})
categories - all categories ({title: WikipediaPage})
displaytitle
canonicalurl
ns
contentmodel
pagelanguage
pagelanguagehtmlcode
pagelanguagedir
touched
lastrevid
length
protection
restrictiontypes
watchers
notificationtimestamp
talkid
fullurl
editurl
readable
preload

WikipediaPageSection¶

title
level
text
sections
section_by_title(title)

ExtractFormat¶

WIKI
HTML

Changelog¶

0.6.0¶

Make user agent mandatory - Issue 63
This breaks the API since user_agent is now the first parameter.

0.5.8¶

Adds support for retrieving all sections with given name - Issue 39

0.5.4¶

Namespace could be arbitrary integer - Issue 29

0.5.3¶

Adds persistent HTTP connection - Issue 26
- Downloading 50 pages reduced from 13s to 8s => 40% speed up

0.5.2¶

Adds namespaces 102 - 105 - Issue 24

0.5.1¶

Adds tox for testing different Python versions

0.5.0¶

Allows modifying API call parameters
Fixes Issue 16 - hidden categories
Fixes Issue 21 - summary extraction

0.4.5¶

Handles missing sections correctly
Fixes Issue 20

0.4.4¶

Uses HTTPS directly instead of HTTP to avoid redirect

0.4.3¶

Correctly extracts text from pages without sections
Adds support for quoted page titles

api = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia(
    language='hi',
)
python = api.article(
    title='%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%87%E0%A4%A5%E0%A4%A8',
    unquote=True,
)
print(python.summary)

0.4.2¶

Adds support for Python 3.4 by not using f-strings

0.4.1¶

Uses code style enforced by flake8
Increased code coverage

0.4.0¶

Uses type annotations => minimal requirement is now Python 3.5
Adds possibility to use more parameters for request. For example:

api = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia(
    language='en',
    proxies={'http': 'http://localhost:1234'}
)

Extends documentation

0.3.4¶

Adds support for property Categorymembers
Adds property text for retrieving complete text of the page

0.3.3¶

Added support for request timeout
Add header: Accept-Encoding: gzip

0.3.2¶

Added support for property Categories

0.3.1¶

Removing WikipediaLangLink
Page keeps track of its own language, so it’s easier to jump between different translations of the same page

0.3.0¶

Rename directory from wikipedia to wikipediaapi to avoid collisions

0.2.4¶

Handle redirects properly

0.2.3¶

Usage method page instead of article in Wikipedia

0.2.2¶

Added support for property Links

0.2.1¶

Added support for property Langlinks

0.2.0¶

Use properties instead of functions
Added support for property Info

0.1.6¶

Support for extracting texts with HTML markdown
Added initial version of unit tests

0.1.4¶

It’s possible to extract summary and sections of the page
Added support for property Extracts

Development¶

Makefile targets¶

make release - based on version specified in wikipedia/__init__.py creates new release as well as git tag
make run-tests - run unit tests
make run-coverage - run code coverage
make pypi-html - generates single HTML documentation into pypi-doc.html
make html - generates HTML documentation similar to RTFD into folder _build/html/
make requirements - install requirements
make requirements-dev - install development requirements

Usage Statistics¶

PIP Downloads

Underlying API¶

`wikipediaapi`¶

Wikipedia-API is easy to use wrapper for extracting information from Wikipedia.

It supports extracting texts, sections, links, categories, translations, etc. from Wikipedia. Documentation provides code snippets for the most common use cases.

wikipediaapi.namespace2int(namespace: Union[wikipediaapi.Namespace, int]) → int¶: Converts namespace into integer

class wikipediaapi.Wikipedia(user_agent: str, language: str = 'en', extract_format: wikipediaapi.ExtractFormat = <ExtractFormat.WIKI: 1>, headers: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None, **kwargs)¶

Wikipedia is wrapper for Wikipedia API.

__del__() → None¶: Closes session.

__init__(user_agent: str, language: str = 'en', extract_format: wikipediaapi.ExtractFormat = <ExtractFormat.WIKI: 1>, headers: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None, **kwargs) → None¶

Constructs Wikipedia object for extracting information Wikipedia.

Parameters:

user_agent – HTTP User-Agent used in requests https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User-Agent_policy
language – Language mutation of Wikipedia - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias
extract_format – Format used for extractions ExtractFormat object.
headers – Headers sent as part of HTTP request
kwargs – Optional parameters used in - http://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/api/#requests.request

Examples:

Proxy: Wikipedia('foo (merlin@example.com)', proxies={'http': 'http://proxy:1234'})

article(title: str, ns: Union[wikipediaapi.Namespace, int] = <Namespace.MAIN: 0>, unquote: bool = False) → wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage¶

Constructs Wikipedia page with title title.

This function is an alias for page()

Parameters:	title – page title as used in Wikipedia URL ns – `WikiNamespace` unquote – if true it will unquote title
Returns:	object representing `WikipediaPage`

backlinks(page: wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage, **kwargs) → Dict[str, wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage]¶

Returns backlinks from other pages with respect to parameters

API Calls for parameters:

Parameters:	page – `WikipediaPage` kwargs – parameters used in API call
Returns:	backlinks from other pages

categories(page: wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage, **kwargs) → Dict[str, wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage]¶

Returns categories for page with respect to parameters

API Calls for parameters:

Parameters:	page – `WikipediaPage` kwargs – parameters used in API call
Returns:	categories for page

categorymembers(page: wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage, **kwargs) → Dict[str, wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage]¶

Returns pages in given category with respect to parameters

API Calls for parameters:

Parameters:	page – `WikipediaPage` kwargs – parameters used in API call
Returns:	pages in given category

extracts(page: wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage, **kwargs) → str¶

Returns summary of the page with respect to parameters

Parameter exsectionformat is taken from Wikipedia constructor.

API Calls for parameters:

Example:

import wikipediaapi
wiki = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia('en')

page = wiki.page('Python_(programming_language)')
print(wiki.extracts(page, exsentences=1))
print(wiki.extracts(page, exsentences=2))

Parameters:	page – `WikipediaPage` kwargs – parameters used in API call
Returns:	summary of the page

info(page: wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage) → wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage¶: https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=help&modules=query%2Binfo https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Info

langlinks(page: wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage, **kwargs) → Dict[str, wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage]¶

Returns langlinks of the page with respect to parameters

API Calls for parameters:

Parameters:	page – `WikipediaPage` kwargs – parameters used in API call
Returns:	links to pages in other languages

links(page: wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage, **kwargs) → Dict[str, wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage]¶

Returns links to other pages with respect to parameters

API Calls for parameters:

Parameters:	page – `WikipediaPage` kwargs – parameters used in API call
Returns:	links to linked pages

page(title: str, ns: Union[wikipediaapi.Namespace, int] = <Namespace.MAIN: 0>, unquote: bool = False) → wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage¶

Constructs Wikipedia page with title title.

Creating WikipediaPage object is always the first step for extracting any information.

Example:

wiki_wiki = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia('en')
page_py = wiki_wiki.page('Python_(programming_language)')
print(page_py.title)
# Python (programming language)

wiki_hi = wikipediaapi.Wikipedia('hi')

page_hi_py = wiki_hi.article(
    title='%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%87%E0%A4%A5%E0%A4%A8',
    unquote=True,
)
print(page_hi_py.title)
# पाइथन

Parameters:	title – page title as used in Wikipedia URL ns – `WikiNamespace` unquote – if true it will unquote title
Returns:	object representing `WikipediaPage`

class wikipediaapi.WikipediaPage(wiki: wikipediaapi.Wikipedia, title: str, ns: Union[wikipediaapi.Namespace, int] = <Namespace.MAIN: 0>, language: str = 'en', url: Optional[str] = None)¶

Represents Wikipedia page.

Except properties mentioned as part of documentation, there are also these properties available:

fullurl - full URL of the page
canonicalurl - canonical URL of the page
pageid - id of the current page
displaytitle - title of the page to display
talkid - id of the page with discussion

__init__(wiki: wikipediaapi.Wikipedia, title: str, ns: Union[wikipediaapi.Namespace, int] = <Namespace.MAIN: 0>, language: str = 'en', url: Optional[str] = None) → None¶: Initialize self. See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.

__repr__()¶: Return repr(self).

backlinks¶

Returns all pages linking to the current page.

This is wrapper for:

Returns:	`PagesDict`

categories¶

Returns categories associated with the current page.

This is wrapper for:

Returns:	`PagesDict`

categorymembers¶

Returns all pages belonging to the current category.

This is wrapper for:

Returns:	`PagesDict`

exists() → bool¶

Returns True if the current page exists, otherwise False.

Returns:	if current page existst or not

langlinks¶

Returns all language links to pages in other languages.

This is wrapper for:

Returns:	`PagesDict`

language¶

Returns language of the current page.

Returns:	language

links¶

Returns all pages linked from the current page.

This is wrapper for:

Returns:	`PagesDict`

namespace¶

Returns namespace of the current page.

Returns:	namespace

section_by_title(title: str) → Optional[wikipediaapi.WikipediaPageSection]¶

Returns last section of the current page with given title.

Parameters:	title – section title
Returns:	`WikipediaPageSection`

sections¶

Returns all sections of the curent page.

Returns:	List of `WikipediaPageSection`

sections_by_title(title: str) → List[wikipediaapi.WikipediaPageSection]¶

Returns all section of the current page with given title.

Parameters:	title – section title
Returns:	`WikipediaPageSection`

summary¶

Returns summary of the current page.

Returns:	summary

text¶

Returns text of the current page.

Returns:	text of the current page

title¶

Returns title of the current page.

Returns:	title

class wikipediaapi.WikipediaPageSection(wiki: wikipediaapi.Wikipedia, title: str, level: int = 0, text: str = '')¶

WikipediaPageSection represents section in the page.

__init__(wiki: wikipediaapi.Wikipedia, title: str, level: int = 0, text: str = '') → None¶: Constructs WikipediaPageSection.

__repr__()¶: Return repr(self).

full_text(level: int = 1) → str¶

Returns text of the current section as well as all its subsections.

Parameters:	level – indentation level
Returns:	text of the current section as well as all its subsections

level¶

Returns indentation level of the current section.

Returns:	indentation level of the current section

section_by_title(title: str) → Optional[wikipediaapi.WikipediaPageSection]¶

Returns subsections of the current section with given title.

Parameters:	title – title of the subsection
Returns:	subsection if it exists

sections¶

Returns subsections of the current section.

Returns:	subsections of the current section

text¶

Returns text of the current section.

Returns:	text of the current section

title¶

Returns title of the current section.

Returns:	title of the current section

class wikipediaapi.ExtractFormat¶

Represents extraction format.

WIKI = 1¶

Allows recognizing subsections

Example: https://goo.gl/PScNVV

HTML = 2¶

Alows retrieval of HTML tags

Example: https://goo.gl/1Jwwpr

class wikipediaapi.Namespace¶

Represents namespace in Wikipedia

You can gen list of possible namespaces here:

Currently following namespaces are supported:

MAIN = 0¶

TALK = 1¶

USER = 2¶

USER_TALK = 3¶

WIKIPEDIA = 4¶

WIKIPEDIA_TALK = 5¶

FILE = 6¶

FILE_TALK = 7¶

MEDIAWIKI = 8¶

MEDIAWIKI_TALK = 9¶

TEMPLATE = 10¶

TEMPLATE_TALK = 11¶

HELP = 12¶

HELP_TALK = 13¶

CATEGORY = 14¶

CATEGORY_TALK = 15¶

PORTAL = 100¶

PORTAL_TALK = 101¶

PROJECT = 102¶

PROJECT_TALK = 103¶

REFERENCE = 104¶

REFERENCE_TALK = 105¶

BOOK = 108¶

BOOK_TALK = 109¶

DRAFT = 118¶

DRAFT_TALK = 119¶

EDUCATION_PROGRAM = 446¶

EDUCATION_PROGRAM_TALK = 447¶

TIMED_TEXT = 710¶

TIMED_TEXT_TALK = 711¶

MODULE = 828¶

MODULE_TALK = 829¶

GADGET = 2300¶

GADGET_TALK = 2301¶

GADGET_DEFINITION = 2302¶

GADGET_DEFINITION_TALK = 2303¶

Wikipedia API¶

Installation¶

Usage¶

Importing¶

How To Get Single Page¶

How To Check If Wiki Page Exists¶

How To Get Page Summary¶

How To Get Page URL¶

How To Get Full Text¶

How To Get Page Sections¶

How To Get Page Section By Title¶

How To Get All Page Sections By Title¶

How To Get Page In Other Languages¶

How To Get Links To Other Pages¶

How To Get Page Categories¶

How To Get All Pages From Category¶

How To See Underlying API Call¶

External Links¶

Other Badges¶

Other Pages¶

API¶

Wikipedia¶

WikipediaPage¶

WikipediaPageSection¶

ExtractFormat¶

Changelog¶

0.6.0¶

0.5.8¶

0.5.4¶

0.5.3¶

0.5.2¶

0.5.1¶

0.5.0¶

0.4.5¶

0.4.4¶

0.4.3¶

0.4.2¶

0.4.1¶

0.4.0¶

0.3.4¶

0.3.3¶

0.3.2¶

0.3.1¶

0.3.0¶

0.2.4¶

0.2.3¶

0.2.2¶

0.2.1¶

0.2.0¶

0.1.6¶

0.1.4¶

Development¶

Makefile targets¶

Usage Statistics¶

Underlying API¶

wikipediaapi¶

`wikipediaapi`¶