Wikipydia

19 October 2009 – James – Brooklyn

I have begun work on a python module for interfacing with the Wikipedia API. It is currently at a 0.1 release and covers the gist of what WikiTrans needs from Wikipedia, though I expect this to expand as time goes by. The Wikipedia API is not yet out of beta and so this module might break unexpectedly from time to time as they iron their API out.

Available here

Finding possible matches for an article name looks like this:

>>> import wikipydia
>>> articles_found = wikipydia.opensearch('Johns Hopkins University')
>>> for name in articles_found[1]:
...     print name
... 
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University Press
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Johns Hopkins University Hospital
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Johns Hopkins University SAIS
Johns Hopkins University School of Education
Johns Hopkins University in Popular Culture
Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School

Finding language alternatives for articles:

>>> lang_dict = wikipydia.query_language_links('Johns Hopkins University')
>>> for lang in lang_dict:
...     print '%s :: %s' % (lang, lang_dict[lang])
... 
el :: Πανεπιστήμιο Τζονς Χόπκινς
eo :: Johns Hopkins Universitato
de :: Johns Hopkins University
fr :: Université Johns-Hopkins
da :: Johns Hopkins University
fa :: دانشگاه جانز هاپکینز
ar :: جامعة جونز هوبكينز
cs :: Johns Hopkins University
fi :: Johns Hopkinsin yliopisto
es :: Universidad Johns Hopkins

It’s also possible to fetch the actual text in either wikimarkup…

>>> wikimarkup_text = wikipydia.query_text_raw('Dennis')
>>> print wikimarkup_text
'''Dennis''' or '''Denis''' is a male [[given name|first name]] derived
...

…or rendered html!

>>> rendered_text = wikipydia.query_text_rendered('Dennis')
>>> print rendered_text
<p><b>Dennis</b> or <b>Denis</b> is a male <a href="/wiki/Given_name"
...

—