[Toolserver-l] Internally calling the MediaWiki API on Toolserver

[Krinkle]

Hi all,

I'm finding myself making calls to the live api on the wmf wikis and  
thinking: Writing the query from scratch for every detail (or copying  
it from the bits and pieces in mw source code) for every time I need  
the data is nonsense since it was already done..... in mediawiki core.

MediaWiki uses the API internally as well in some places (more in  
extensions) with a FauxRequest (which is calling the api without a  
real http request).
 From a server hosting a live MediaWiki-site it's very easy (php  
include includes/WebStart.php anad make a FauxRequest() - one can make  
several requests all without making a http request ). However from the  
toolserver it's a little trickier since we're not on the same server.

So I was thinking :
* upload a mediawiki install (the same version that WMF runs, ie.  
1.16wmf4 or 1.17wmf1)
* make it not publically accessable (we don't want people actually  
browsing the wiki)
* Configure it in a special way so that one can use the same code for  
any wiki (ie. a $lang and $family variable of some kind)

Then one can include includes/WebStart.php, and use the API (ie. using  
the huge library of quiries already in the MediaWiki core (ie.  
action=query&list=categorymembers, using generators and getting  
properties, you name it) like this:

<source>
$site = 'wikipedia';
$lang = 'en';
require( $mw_root . '/includes/WebStart.php' ); // loads all common  
code including LocalSettings.php
// LocalSettings contains extra code to check for $site and $lang  
figuring out the correct $wgDBname,
// $wgDBserver etc. a tiny bit like wmf's CommonSettings.php

$apiRequest = array(
	'action' => 'query',
	'list' => '...',
	/* etc. */
);
/* etc. */
</source>

This should basically be includable by anyone so that not everybody  
has to re-do this.

ie. it could be in /home/somebody/wmf-api/includes/WebStart.php
which would be a checkout of the wmf-branch in SVN and (maybe) the  
same extensions etc.


This will make it a lot easier to interact with the database when you  
need certain information, this will also prevent us from hardcoding  
names all the time (which I'm sure happends a lot and this is one of  
the causes some tools brake over time when just small details changed).

I believe some of the toolserver users already have parts of mediawiki  
in their home (I imagine stuff like GlobalFunctions.php can be very  
handy at times).

Basically I'm asking three things:
* Has this been done already ? If so, we should document this better  
as I spent time looking for it but came up empty
* Do we want this ? Are there potential problems here, what do we need  
to tackle or fix on our side ?
* Who would want to do this ? (If nobody has plans for this already, I  
would like to do this)


--
Krinkle