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