Hi, in response to bug 54607 [1], we've changed the semantics of the
mobileformat parameter to action=parse

== Summary ==

Previously, it used to accept strings 'html' or 'wml', later just
'html' and modify the structure of output (see below). This was problematic
because you needed to retrieve the HTML from output in different ways,
depending on whether mobileformat is specified or not. Now,
mobileformat is a boolean parameter, that is if there's a 'mobileformat'
parameter in request, it will be treated as "the output should be
mobile-friendly", regardless of value. And the output structure will
be the same. For compatibility with older callers,
mobileformat=(html|wml) will be special-cased to return the older
structure at least for 6 month from now. These changes will start
being rolled out to the WMF sites starting from tomorrow, Tuesday
October 24th and this process will be complete by October 31st.

== Examples ==

=== Non-mobile parse ===

api.php?action=parse&format=xml

{
"parse": {
        "title": "...",
        "text": {
            "*": "foo"
            }
        }
}

api.php?action=parse&format=json

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <parse title="..." displaytitle="...">
    <text xml:space="preserve">foo</text>
  </parse>
</api>


=== Parse that outputs mobile HTML, old style ===

api.php?action=parse&format=json&mobileformat=html

{
    "parse": {
        "title": "API",
        "text": "foo"
        }
}

api.php?action=parse&format=xml&mobileformat=html

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <parse title="..." text="foo" displaytitle="...">
  </parse>
</api>

=== Parse that outputs mobile HTML, new style ===

api.php?action=parse&format=...&mobileformat

Same as for non-mobile parses.

== FAQ ==

Q: I didn't use mobileformat before, does anything change for me?
A: No.

Q: I use mobileformat=html, will my bot/tool be broken now?
A: No, you will have 6 months to switch to new style.

Q: I'm only planning to use mobileformat, what should I do?
A: Just use the new style.

Q: How did this format discrepancy appear in the first place?
A: To err is human.

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[1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54607