Hi, this idea had floated around for quite some time, but now that
bug 34257[1] was added to the long list of problems, I would like to
step up and start some progress. We[2] propose to remove the following
formats[3]:
* WDDX - doesn't seem to be used by anyone. Doesn't look sane either.
* YAML - we don't serve real YAML anyway, currently it's just a subset
of JSON.
* rawfm - was created for debugging the JSON formatter aeons ago, not
useful for anything now.
* txt, dbg, dump - the only reason they were added is that it was
possible to add them, they don't serve the purpose of
machine/machine communication.
So, only 3 formats would remain:
* JSON - *the* recommended API format
* XML - evil and clumsy but sadly used too widely to be revoved in the
foreseeable future
* php - this one is used by several extensions and probably by some
third-party reusers, so we won't remove it this time. However,
any new uses of it should be discouraged.
We plan to remove the aforementioned formats as soon as MediaWiki 1.19
is branched so that these changes will take effect in 1.20, but would
like to hear from you first if there are good reasons why we shouldn't
do it or postpone it. Please have your say.
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[1]
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34257
[2] Me and Roan Kattouw, one of API's primary developers
[3]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Data_formats
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Best regards,
Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]])