I think of this as a tree, even though I know it's a graph.  If I send a query like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=parse&page=Portal:Novels The <links> element contains <pl> items in namespaces 0 (articles), 14 (categories), and 100 (portals).  I interpret that as "Portal:Novels contains these items", meaning that in tree terms it is the parent of those items, or that those items "belong to Portal:Novels". If I send a query like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?cmtitle=Category:Literature&action=qu… The <categories> element contains <cl> items that are the categories that contain Category:Literature, the parent categories.  Similarly for pages. So I'm able to list the categories that are the parents of a given category or page, but I can't seem to find a way to list the portals that are the parents of a given category or page.  Is there a way to do that?  Basically I'm just trying to navigate the tree.

Thanks André, but after testing it seems that backlinks returns something else.  For example this query: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=Category:Voltaire… Returns:  <query>    <pages>      <page pageid="3465227" ns="14" title="Category:Voltaire">        <categories>          <cl ns="14" title="Category:Categories named after French people" />          <cl ns="14" title="Category:Categories named after philosophers" />          <cl ns="14" title="Category:Categories named after writers" />        </categories>      </page>    </pages>  </query> But this query: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=backlinks&bltit… Returns:  <query>    <backlinks />  </query> If I just use "Voltaire" instead of "Category:Voltaire" then I think it's looking at a different page, right?  The results are different, and don't match the first query results:  <query>    <backlinks>      <bl pageid="3465227" ns="14" title="Category:Voltaire" />      <bl pageid="15582893" ns="14" title="Category:Novels by Voltaire" />    </backlinks>  </query>

The <links> element contains <pl> items in namespaces 0 (articles), 14

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to criticize. What I was trying to do is to validate that list=backlinks and prop=categories are querying for the same relationship if the backlinks namespace is set for categories, using blnamespace=14. If they were two ways to query for the same relationship between pages, then the results should be the same, but they are not. I've been able to verify that prop=categories returns the correct relationship, because the inverse (list=categorymembers) returns the inverse result. If prop=categories indicates that A is a parent of B, then list=categorymembers correctly indicates that B is a child of A. So what I'm trying to do is find the same relationship for portal pages (namespace=100). list=categorymembers also correctly returns the children who are portals, but I don't know how to find the parents that are portals. Thanks in advance, Robert -----Original Message----- From: Andre Engels [mailto:andreengels@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2011 10:15 AM To: Robert Crowe Cc: MediaWiki API announcements & discussion Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-api] Portals vs categories On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Robert Crowe &lt;robert(a)ourwebhome.com&gt; wrote: else. For example this query: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=Category:Voltaire… people" /> /> > <cl ns="14" title="Category:Categories named after writers" /> > </categories> > </page> > </pages> > </query> > > But this query: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=backlinks&bltit… looking at a different page, right? The results are different, and don't match the first query results: You criticize my request because another request does not give the same result as a third request... I understand less and less of what you are trying to do. -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com _______________________________________________ Mediawiki-api mailing list Mediawiki-api(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-api