New subject: Coding my first extension!!! a few questions if you don't mind

16 May 2008


      Dear developers,
I wrote or edited the code attached below.  I've also supplied working
sample input and output files.  I changed certain variables or names to
"arbitrary" or "tag" in order to figure out how the thing works.  Some
variables like $wgParser or setHook can not be changed and appear to be
predefined.  That's fine, but when I hit "GO" after placing either one of
these into the search box at mediawiki.org I get "*There is no page titled
"setHook"*.  I'm typically a Perl programmer and I understand how the
following work:
1. htmlspecialchars
   2. implode
   3. return
   4. function
   5. foreach
   6. array();
I just don't understand how this program knows the "$input" variable is
inbetween the tags and the "$args" is embedded withing the html tag.  It
would be nice to read up on $wgParser and setHook as well but as I said
earlier the mediawiki go button doesn't return any results and search
returns too many.
Thanks for the support,
-Jon
*Code:*
...
<?php
$wgExtensionFunctions[] = 'arbitraryFunctionName1';
function arbitraryFunctionName1() {
    global $wgParser; #important and breaks if changed, not found on
PHP.net
    $wgParser->setHook( 'tag', 'arbitraryFunctionName2' );
}
function arbitraryFunctionName2( $input, $args, $parser ) {
    $attr = array();
    // This time, make a list of attributes and their values,
    // and dump them, along with the user input
    foreach( $args as $ArbitraryName => $ArbitraryValue )
        $attr[] = '<strong>' . htmlspecialchars( $ArbitraryName ) .
'</strong> = ' . htmlspecialchars( $ArbitraryValue );
    return implode( '<br />', $attr ) . "\n\n" . htmlspecialchars( $input
);
}
*Input:*
...
<tag url="http://www.random.com" arg2="xxx"
license="commercial">Company</tag>
*Output*
...
*url* = http://www.random.com
*arg2* = xxx
*license* = commercial
Company