Benjamin Mako Hill
0b1557efc5
pip install . copies the source, so a branch switch leaves the installed console script running the old code. Say so, since that is easy to miss. Setup on klone differs enough that duplicating it here would go stale; link to the collective's wiki rather than restating it. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
117 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
117 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
# mediawiki_dump_tools
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Tools for converting MediaWiki XML database dumps—the "history" dumps
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that include every revision of every page—into tabular datasets for
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research. The main tool is `wikiq`, a command line program that produces
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one row per revision with metadata such as the page, namespace,
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timestamp, editor, text size, and revert status, plus a range of
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optional computed columns.
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## Installation
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wikiq requires Python 3.11 or later. Install it with pip from a clone of
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this repository:
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git clone https://gitea.communitydata.science/collective/mediawiki_dump_tools.git
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cd mediawiki_dump_tools
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pip install .
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[uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) works too (`uv sync`) and is convenient
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for development, but it is not required.
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One dependency, `pywikidiff2`, is installed from source and compiles a
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C++ extension, so a C++ compiler must be available at install time.
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Wikimedia dumps are usually compressed as 7z (most common), gz, or bz2.
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wikiq reads these by running your system's decompression tools, so it
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depends on `7za`, `zcat`, and `bzcat` for those respective formats. On
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Debian or Ubuntu, `apt install 7zip` provides `7za`; the others are
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standard.
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Note that `pip install .` copies the source into the environment, so
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rerun it after switching branches or editing the code.
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Members of the Community Data Science Collective installing on the klone
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cluster should follow the collective's own instructions instead, since
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the Python environment and its dependencies are set up differently
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there. See [CommunityData:Hyak software
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installation](https://wiki.communitydata.science/CommunityData:Hyak_software_installation).
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## Usage
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wikiq dump.xml.7z -o output/
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Each output row describes one revision. The output format follows the
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`-o` argument: a path ending in `.jsonl` produces JSON Lines, anything
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else produces tab-separated values. With no dump file argument, wikiq
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reads XML on stdin and writes to stdout.
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The `title` and `namespace` columns are page-level identity values as
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of the time of export: a moved page's entire history carries its final
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title, and namespace derives from that title. Redirect status, by
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contrast, is determined per revision from each revision's own text: the
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`revision_is_redirect` and `revision_redirect_target` columns record
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whether a revision's text begins with a redirect directive and where it
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points. `#REDIRECT` is recognized on every wiki; wikis that also use a
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localized keyword can add it with `--redirect-aliases` (for example,
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`--redirect-aliases OMDIRIGERING` for Swedish wikis).
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The most commonly useful options (`wikiq --help` describes them all):
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- `-n ID` limits output to a namespace, and can be given more than once.
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`-rr N` sets how many prior edits are checked when detecting reverts.
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- `--collapse-user` collapses each sequence of consecutive edits by the
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same user into a single row, which can address problems with text
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persistence measures.
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- `-p [METHOD]` computes content persistence measures for each revision:
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persistent token revisions, tokens added, and tokens removed. The
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available methods are `sequence` (the default), `segment` (robust to
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content moves but slower), `wikidiff2` (like segment, using the
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wikidiff2 diff engine), and `legacy` (the behavior of older research
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projects). Persistence is the slowest thing wikiq computes.
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- `-d` outputs a structured diff for each revision; `-t` outputs the
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full revision text.
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- `--external-links`, `--citations`, `--wikilinks`, `--templates`, and
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`--headings` parse each revision's wikitext and add a column with the
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extracted elements.
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- `--content-sizes` counts each revision's rendered content characters
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in two columns: `prose_chars` (content outside templates and tags) and
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`structured_chars` (template parameter values and tag inner text).
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Markup syntax and comments count in neither.
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- `-RP REGEX -RPl LABEL` searches revision text for a regular expression
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and reports the matches in a column named by the label; repeat the
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pair for multiple patterns. `-CP`/`-CPl` do the same for edit
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summaries. Adding `-RPc` or `-CPc` reports the number of matches
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instead of the matched text.
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- `--resume` continues an interrupted run from the last complete line of
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an existing JSONL output file. Combined with `--time-limit HOURS`,
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this supports processing very large dumps in bounded chunks.
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- `--print-schema` prints a Spark-compatible JSON schema for the
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configured output and exits.
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## Tests
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From the repository root:
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uv run pytest test/
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Run the suite from the root—some tests open fixture files by paths
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relative to it. The full suite processes several real dumps from
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`test/dumps/` and takes a couple of minutes; expected outputs live in
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`test/baseline_output/`.
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## Authors
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wikiq is written and maintained by members of the [Community Data
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Science Collective](https://wiki.communitydata.science/). Contributors
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include Benjamin Mako Hill, Nathan TeBlunthuis, Will Beason, Sohyeon
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Hwang, and Kaylea Champion. It builds on earlier versions of the tool
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written in Python and in C++ by Benjamin Mako Hill.
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## License
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wikiq is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
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the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
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Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your
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option) any later version. See [COPYING](COPYING) for the full text.
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