The action=query module allows you to fetch information about a wiki and the data stored in it, such as the wikitext of a particular page, the links and categories of a set of pages, or the token you need to {{ll|API:Changing wiki content|change wiki content}}.

API documentation

Special:ApiHelp/query

Query modules

The query module has three types of submodules (also called query modules):

  • {{ll|API:Meta|Meta information}} about the wiki and the logged-in user.
  • {{ll|API:Properties|Properties}} of pages, including page revisions and content.
  • {{ll|API:Lists|Lists}} of pages that match certain criteria.

Examples

Example 1: Specifying pages

Unlike meta and list query modules, all property query modules work on a set of pages that can be specified in one of the following ways:

  • By name using the titles parameter, e.g. titles=Foo|Bar|Main_Page.
  • By page ID using the pageids parameter, e.g. pageids=123|456|75915.
  • By revision ID using the revids parameter, e.g. revids=478198|54872|54894545. Most query modules will convert revision ID to the corresponding page ID. Only prop=revisions actually uses the revision ID itself.

GET request

Response

{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "pages": [
            {
                "pageid": 1130,
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Avicenna"
            },
            {
                "pageid": 17412,
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Klein bottle"
            },
            {
                "pageid": 33642,
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Warrant"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Example 2: Title normalization


Title normalization converts page titles to their canonical form.

This means capitalizing the first character, replacing underscores with spaces, and changing namespace to the localized form defined for that wiki.

Any trailing line breaks in page titles (\n) will cause odd behavior and they should be stripped out first.

GET request

Response

{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "normalized": [
            {
                "fromencoded": false,
                "from": "Project:articleA",
                "to": "Wikipedia:ArticleA"
            },
            {
                "fromencoded": false,
                "from": "article_B",
                "to": "Article B"
            }
        ],
        "pages": [
            {
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Article B",
                "missing": true
            },
            {
                "ns": 4,
                "title": "Wikipedia:ArticleA",
                "missing": true
            }
        ]
    }
}

Example 3: Missing and invalid titles

Titles that don't exist or are invalid will have a missing or invalid attribute set in the response.

In output formats that support numeric array keys, missing and invalid titles will have negative page IDs.

In some cases, a title can be viewed by a user but cannot be accessed by the API, such as pages that mirror content from another wiki. These titles will have a known attribute set in the response.

GET request

Response

{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "pages": [
            {
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Doesntexist",
                "missing": true
            },
            {
                "title": "Talk:",
                "invalidreason": "The requested page title is empty or contains only the name of a namespace.",
                "invalid": true
            },
            {
                "pageid": 15580374,
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Main Page"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Example 4: Continuing queries

When all the data is not returned in the response of a query, there will be a continue attribute to indicate that there is more data.

GET request

Response

{
    "continue": {
        "accontinue": "List_of_largest_companies_in_Sri_Lanka",
        "continue": "-||"
    },
    "query": {
        "allcategories": [
            {
                "category": "List of BioWare characters"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of Harlequin Romance novels"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of MPs elected in UK elections templates"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of Metamorphoses characters"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of Rockstar Games characters"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of Star Trek awards and nominations"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of Swedish films of the 2020s"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of association football clubs in the Republic of Ireland templates"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of awards and nominations received by Aleksej Pechkuroy"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of cabinet templates"
            }
        ]
    }
}

To get further data, add its values to the original request:

GET request

Response

{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "allcategories": [
            {
                "category": "List of largest companies in Sri Lanka"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of longest beaches of the world"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of ministers by ministry of Bangladesh"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of people from Palm Beach, Florida"
            },
            {
                "category": "List of video game characters"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Example 5: Batchcomplete

The API returns a batchcomplete element to indicate that all data for the current batch of items has been returned. MW 1.25+

In the response of the sample query below, batchcomplete has been included to indicate that all the data for each of the three images has been returned.

The next continuation will begin returning data for the next set of 3 images.

GET request

Response
{
  "batchcomplete": true,
  "continue": {
    "aicontinue": "20020822143445|Do_You_Want_to_Know_a_Secret_(Beatles_song_-_sample).ogg",
    "continue": "-||"
  },
  "query": {
    "allimages": [
      {
        "name": "Simon_and_Garfunkel_-_Mrs_Robinson.ogg",
        "timestamp": "2002-08-04T19:55:17Z",
        "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/Simon_and_Garfunkel_-_Mrs_Robinson.ogg",
        "descriptionurl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Simon_and_Garfunkel_-_Mrs_Robinson.ogg",
        "descriptionshorturl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67723",
        "ns": 6,
        "title": "File:Simon and Garfunkel - Mrs Robinson.ogg"
      },
      {
        "name": "Simon_and_Garfunkel_-_Scarborough_Fair.ogg",
        "timestamp": "2002-08-04T20:01:36Z",
        "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/Simon_and_Garfunkel_-_Scarborough_Fair.ogg",
        "descriptionurl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Simon_and_Garfunkel_-_Scarborough_Fair.ogg",
        "descriptionshorturl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67779",
        "ns": 6,
        "title": "File:Simon and Garfunkel - Scarborough Fair.ogg"
      },
      {
        "name": "Beatles_please_me.ogg",
        "timestamp": "2002-08-22T14:34:00Z",
        "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ee/Beatles_please_me.ogg",
        "descriptionurl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beatles_please_me.ogg",
        "descriptionshorturl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74826",
        "ns": 6,
        "title": "File:Beatles please me.ogg"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example 6: Generators

Use generators if you want to get data about a set of pages.

For example, to get data about pages in a certain category, instead of querying list=categorymembers and then querying again with pageids set to all the returned pages, combine the two API calls into one by using generator=categorymembers.

When using a list module as a generator, you don't need to specify the pages.

However, for a property module, you should specify the pages which the generator will work on.

For example, to load all pages that are linked to from the main page, use generator=links&titles=Main%20Page.

Parameters passed to a generator must be prefixed with a g. For instance, when using generator=backlinks, use gbllimit instead of bllimit.

The sample query below gets links and categories for the first three pages in the main namespace starting with "Ba".

GET request

Response

{
     "continue": {
         "plcontinue": "14977970|0|Kirkwall_Ba_game",
         "continue": "||categories"
     },
     "query": {
         "pages": [
             {
                 "pageid": 98178,
                 "ns": 0,
                 "title": "Ba",
                 "links": [
                     {
                         "ns": 0,
                         "title": "BA"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 4,
                         "title": "Wikipedia:Mainspace"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 4,
                         "title": "Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 4,
                         "title": "Wikipedia:Protection policy"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 4,
                         "title": "Wikipedia:Redirect"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 10,
                         "title": "Template:R from miscapitalisation"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 10,
                         "title": "Template:R from modification"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 10,
                         "title": "Template:R to disambiguation page"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 14,
                         "title": "Category:Redirects from ambiguous terms"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 14,
                         "title": "Category:Redirects from other capitalisations"
                     }
                 ],
                 "categories": [
                     {
                         "ns": 14,
                         "title": "Category:Redirects from ambiguous terms"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 14,
                         "title": "Category:Redirects from other capitalisations"
                     },
                     {
                         "ns": 14,
                         "title": "Category:Unprintworthy redirects"
                     }
                 ]
             },
             {
                 "pageid": 14977970,
                 "ns": 0,
                 "title": "Ba'"
             },
             {
                 "pageid": 33351890,
                 "ns": 0,
                 "title": "Ba'Al Shem Tov"
             }
         ]
     } 
}

Continuing queries

Queries will often have more results available than are just shown in the original query. (Often this is because a List query's result limit has been reached.) In these cases, queries can be continued. More detailed information on continuing queries can be at API:Continue.

Possible warnings

Warning message Cause
No support for special pages has been implemented. Thrown if a title in the Special: or Media: namespace is given. The pages in these namespaces cannot be queried.
Redirect resolution cannot be used together with the revids parameter. Any redirects the revids point to have not been resolved. Thrown if the redirect parameter is used in a query that specifies pages using revids.

Parameter history

  • v1.34: Introduced exportschema
  • v1.24: Introduced rawcontinue (note: raw continuation was the default behavior until v1.26)
  • v1.21: Introduced continue

Additional notes

  • Specifying titles through titles or pageids is limited to 50 titles per query, or 500 for those with the apihighlimits right.
  • Use multiple query modules together to get what you need in one request, e.g. prop=info|revisions&list=backlinks|embeddedin|allimages&meta=userinfo.
  • Generators always pass page titles to the query module. Unlike lists (which may include additional data by default), generators should not output any information themselves, unless when explicitly requested via the generator module's query parameters.

Resolving redirects

Redirects can be resolved automatically, so that the target of a redirect is returned instead of the given title. When present, they will always contain from and to attributes and may contain a tofragment attribute for those redirects that point to specific sections.

Both normalization and redirection may take place. In the case of multiple redirects, all redirects will be resolved, and in case of a circular redirect, there might not be a page in the 'pages' section (see also below). Redirect resolution cannot be used in combination with the revids= parameter or with a generator generating revids; doing that will produce a warning and will not resolve redirects for the specified revids.

The examples below show how the redirects parameter works.

Using "redirects" parameter. "Main page" is a redirect to "Main Page"

Result
{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "redirects": [
            {
                "from": "Main page",
                "to": "Main Page"
            }
        ],
        "pages": [
            {
                "pageid": 15580374,
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Main Page"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Same request but without the "redirects" parameter.

Result
{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "pages": [
            {
                "pageid": 217225,
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Main page"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Without "redirects" you may want to use prop=info to obtain redirect status.

Result
{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "pages": [
            {
                "pageid": 217225,
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Main page",
                "contentmodel": "wikitext",
                "pagelanguage": "en",
                "pagelanguagehtmlcode": "en",
                "pagelanguagedir": "ltr",
                "touched": "2017-12-17T02:02:05Z",
                "lastrevid": 777924062,
                "length": 170,
                "redirect": true
            }
        ]
    }
}

Request with a section link. "Wikipedia:!--" is a redirect to "Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Invisible comments"

Result
{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "redirects": [
            {
                "from": "Wikipedia:!--",
                "to": "Wikipedia:Manual of Style",
                "tofragment": "Invisible comments"
            }
        ],
        "pages": [
            {
                "pageid": 33697,
                "ns": 4,
                "title": "Wikipedia:Manual of Style"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Here is a case of a circular redirect: Page1 → Page2 → Page3 → Page1. Also, in this example a non-normalized name 'page1' is used.

Result
{
    "batchcomplete": true,
    "query": {
        "normalized": [
            {
                "fromencoded": false,
                "from": "page1",
                "to": "Page1"
            }
        ],
        "redirects": [
            {
                "from": "Page1",
                "to": "Page2"
            },
            {
                "from": "Page2",
                "to": "Page3"
            },
            {
                "from": "Page3",
                "to": "Page1"
            }
        ],
        "pages": [
            {
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Page1",
                "missing": true
            }
        ]
    }
}

See also

  • API:Main page - The quick start guide.
  • API:Raw query continue - Contains information on how to use the rawcontinue parameter.
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