rEXDA/03a091ada55dmaster
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README
External Data extension
Version 1.8.1 Yaron Koren and (many) others
This is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License. Please see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for further details, including the full text and terms of the license.
Overview
External Data is an extension to MediaWiki that allows for retrieving data from various sources: external URLs and local wiki pages (in CSV, GFF, JSON and XML formats), database tables, and LDAP servers.
The extension defines the following parser functions: #get_web_data, #get_soap_data, #get_file_data, #get_db_data, #get_ldap_data, #external_value, #for_external_table, #display_external_table, #store_external_table and #clear_external_data. They are described below:
- #get_web_data retrieves the data from a URL that holds CSV, GFF,
JSON or XML, and assigns it to local variables or arrays.
- #get_soap_data retrieves data from a URL via SOAP.
- #get_file_data retrieves data from a local file, that can be in any of
the same formats that #get_web_data handles.
- #get_db_data retrieves data from a database, using (in most cases)
SQL-like syntax, and assigns it to local variables or arrays.
- #get_ldap_data retrieves data from an LDAP server and assigns it to
local variables.
- #external_value displays the value of any retrieved variable, or the
first value if it's an array.
- #for_external_table applies processing onto multiple rows retrieved by
any of the #get_*_data functions
- #display_external_table is like #for_external_table, but passes the
values of each row to a template, which handles the formatting.
- #store_external_table mimics a call to the Semantic Internal Objects
extension's #set_internal parser function onto each row retrieved by any of the #get_*_data functions, in order to store the entire array of data semantically.
- #clear_external_data erases the current set of retrieved data.
In addition, the extension defines a new special page, 'GetData', that exports selected rows from a wiki page that holds CSV data, in a format that is readable by #get_web_data.
For more information, see the extension homepage at: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:External_Data
Requirements
This version of the External Data extension requires MediaWiki 1.17 or higher.
Installation
To install the extension, place the entire 'ExternalData' directory within your MediaWiki 'extensions' directory, then add the following line to your 'LocalSettings.php' file:
require_once( "$IP/extensions/ExternalData/ExternalData.php" );
To cache the data from the URLs being accessed, you can call the contents of ExternalData.sql in your database, then add the following to LocalSettings.php:
$edgCacheTable = 'ed_url_cache';
You should also add a line like the following, to set the expiration time of the cache, in seconds; this line will cache data for a week:
$edgCacheExpireTime = 7 * 24 * 60 * 60;
You can also set for string replacements to be done on the URLs you call, for instance to hide API keys:
$edgStringReplacements['MY_API_KEY'] = 'abcd1324';
You can create a "whitelist" to allow retrieval of data only from trusted sites, in the manner of MediaWiki's $wgAllowExternalImagesFrom - if you are hiding API keys, it is very much recommended to create such a whitelist, to prevent users from being able to discover their values:
$edgAllowExternalDataFrom = array('http://example.com/api');
Finally, to use the database or LDAP retrieval capabilities, you need to set connection settings as well - see the online documentation for more information.
Contact
Most comments, questions, suggestions and bug reports should be sent to the Semantic MediaWiki mailing list:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-user
Although the External Data extension in general is independent of Semantic MediaWiki, the fact that it uses Semantic Internal Objects for one of its functions, along with the fact that the two extensions are often used together, means that it can be considered part of the Semantic MediaWiki family for communication purposes.
If possible, please add "[ED]" at the beginning of the subject line, to clarify the subject matter.