mwlib - MediaWiki Parser and Utility Library

Overview

mwlib is a versatile library designed for parsing MediaWiki articles and converting them to various output formats. A notable application of mwlib is in Wikipedia's "Print/export" feature, where it is used to create PDF documents from Wikipedia articles.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

To build mwlib, ensure you have the following software installed:

• Python (version 3.11 or 3.12)
• Ploticus
• re2c
• Perl
• Pillow / PyImage
• ImageMagick
• uv (Python package installer, faster alternative to pip)

Setup a virtual environment for Python 3.11 or 3.12 and activate it.

Installing uv

If you don't have uv installed, you can install it following the instructions at uv's official documentation.

For example, on Unix-like systems:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Or using pip:

pip install uv

Installing mwlib

To install all dependencies and the project, run:

$ make install

This will use uv to install all required dependencies.

To build the C extensions and install mwlib in development mode:

$ make build
$ make develop

Documentation

Please visit http://mwlib.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html for detailed documentation.

Configuration

OAuth2 Configuration

mwlib supports OAuth2 client_credentials flow for Wikipedia API access. This allows authenticated access to MediaWiki APIs that require OAuth2 authentication, while maintaining compatibility with wikis that don't use OAuth2.

OAuth2 Configuration Options

The following configuration options are available for OAuth2:

• oauth2.client_id: OAuth2 client ID
• oauth2.client_secret: OAuth2 client secret
• oauth2.token_url: URL for obtaining OAuth2 tokens (default: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/rest.php/oauth2/access_token)
• oauth2.enabled: Whether to use OAuth2 (default: False)

HTTP/2 Configuration Options

mwlib also supports HTTP/2 for improved performance:

• http2.enabled: Whether to use HTTP/2 (default: True)
• http2.auto_detect: Whether to auto-detect HTTP/2 support (default: True)

These configuration options can be set either through environment variables or in a configuration file (mwlib.ini or ~/.mwlibrc). The following table shows the mapping between configuration file options and their corresponding environment variables:

Example configuration file (mwlib.ini):

[oauth2]
enabled=true
client_id=your-client-id
client_secret=your-client-secret

[http2]
auto_detect=true

Example Usage

You can also set the config parameters directly when instantiating MwApi:

from mwlib.network.sapi import MwApi

# Using OAuth2
api = MwApi(
    apiurl="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php",
    use_oauth2=True
)

The recommended best practice, however, is to configure environment variables:

export MWLIB_OAUTH2_CLIENT_ID="your_client_id"
export MWLIB_OAUTH2_CLIENT_SECRET="your_client_secret"
export MWLIB_OAUTH2_ENABLED="True"

File Store Lookup for Image Description Pages

mwlib can look up image description pages (namespace 6) in a local SQLite file instead of fetching them from the remote MediaWiki API. This significantly reduces the number of API requests and bypasses Wikipedia rate limits for configured domains.

The data originates from the Wikimedia Enterprise API snapshot endpoint, which provides Wikipedia page data as NDJSON files. mw-file-store turns that snapshot into a SQLite file of pre-extracted metadata: templates (used for license checking), image dimensions, content URLs, and license information.

How it works

1. During ZIP creation (mw-zip), image description page titles for configured domains (default: en.wikipedia.org) are batched and looked up in the file store.
2. For pages found in the store, templates are stored locally and an early license check is performed — images that fail the license filter are never downloaded.
3. Pages not found in the store fall back to the remote MediaWiki API.
4. Non-configured domains (e.g., Commons) always use the remote API.

Configuration Options

Example environment variable configuration:

export MWLIB_FILESTORE_PATH="/data/file_pages.sqlite"
export MWLIB_FILESTORE_DOMAINS="en.wikipedia.org"

Or in a configuration file (mwlib.ini):

[filestore]
path=/data/file_pages.sqlite
domains=en.wikipedia.org

When no store is configured, or the file is missing or unreadable, mwlib falls back to the remote API automatically with no change in behavior. The file is re-opened whenever it is replaced, so a rebuild needs no restart.

Building the File Store

Use the mw-file-store command to download the Wikimedia Enterprise namespace 6 snapshot (about 2 GB) and build the SQLite file:

mw-file-store --path /data/file_pages.sqlite

# Rebuild even if the snapshot has not changed
mw-file-store --path /data/file_pages.sqlite --fresh

The build writes <path>.new and atomically renames it over <path>, so readers never see a partial file. A run whose snapshot matches the live file exits without downloading, and a new file with too few rows (or more than 10% fewer than the live one) is refused. --path defaults to MWLIB_FILESTORE_PATH.

This requires Wikimedia Enterprise API credentials:

export WME_USERNAME="your-username"
export WME_PASSWORD="your-password"

Docker Compose Setup

For users interested in setting up mwlib using Docker Compose, detailed instructions are available at Docker Compose documentation.

License

Copyright (c) 2007-2012 PediaPress GmbH

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

• Neither the name of PediaPress GmbH nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

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