API:Edit

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This page is part of the MediaWiki action API documentation.

MediaWiki APIs

MediaWiki action API

edit

This module cannot be used as a Generator.

Prefix

Required rights

edit

Post only?

Yes

Generated help

Current

Version added

≥ 1.13

Requires the selected MediaWiki to have the following configuration settings set to true: $wgEnableAPI and $wgEnableWriteAPI. See Manual:DefaultSettings.php. This module is implemented by ApiEditPage.php.

Token[edit]

To edit a page, an edit token is required. This token is the same for all pages, but changes at every login. The preferred method to obtain an edit token depends on the MediaWiki version:

Versions 1.24 and later: action=query&meta=tokens
Versions 1.20-1.23: action=tokens
Versions 1.19 and earlier: action=query&prop=info

Currently, all older methods continue to work, but are deprecated.

If you want to protect against edit conflicts (which is wise), you also need to get the timestamp of the last revision, included in the example below:

Obtaining an edit token

api.php?action=query&prop=info|revisions&intoken=edit&rvprop=timestamp&titles=Wikipedia:Sandbox [try in ApiSandbox]

When passing this to the Edit API, always pass the token parameter last (or at least after the text parameter). That way, if the edit gets interrupted, the token won't be passed and the edit will fail. This is done automatically by mw.Api.

When running on a MediaWiki page, the token can be obtained by calling mw.user.tokens.get('editToken') (more information).

Unregistered users[edit]

For unregistered users, the token is always +\, but you may want to request it explicitly in case this changes in the future.

Editing pages[edit]

Pages can be edited and created with action=edit.

Parameters[edit]

title: Title of the page you want to edit. Cannot be used together with pageid. Note: If $wgCapitalLinks is set to false, 'Article' and 'article' will not be considered as the same page, as in Wiktionary, for example.
pageid: Page ID of the page you want to edit. Cannot be used together with title. 1.20+
section: Section number. 0 for the top section, 'new' for a new section. Omit to act on the entire page.
sectiontitle: Title to use if creating a new section. If not specified, summary will be used instead. 1.19+
text: New page (or section) content.
summary: Edit summary. Also section title when section=new and sectiontitle is not set.
tags: Tag(s) to apply to this edit, they must be have been manually defined at Special:Tags and the user must be able to apply them (by default, all registered users can). 1.25+
minor: If set, mark the edit as minor.
notminor: If set, don't mark the edit as minor, even if you have the "Mark all my edits minor by default" preference enabled.
bot: If set, mark the edit as bot; even if you are using a bot account the edits will not be marked unless you set this flag.
basetimestamp: Timestamp of the base revision (obtained through prop=revisions&rvprop=timestamp). Used to detect edit conflicts; leave unset to ignore conflicts. Note: Edit conflicts will be ignored if you are conflicting with the current user.
starttimestamp: Timestamp when you started editing the page (e.g., when you fetched the current revision's text to begin editing it or checked the (non-)existence of the page). Used to detect if the page has been deleted since you started editing; leave unset to ignore conflicts. 1.14+
recreate: Override any errors about the article having been deleted in the meantime.
createonly: Don't edit the page if it exists already.
nocreate: Throw an error if the page doesn't exist.
watch: Add the page to your watchlist. Deprecated. Use the watchlist argument (Deprecated in 1.16)
unwatch: Remove the page from your watchlist. Deprecated. Use the watchlist argument (Deprecated in 1.16)
watchlist: Specify how the watchlist is affected by this edit, set to one of "watch", "unwatch", "preferences", "nochange": (Default: preferences) 1.16+
- watch: add the page to the watchlist.
- unwatch: remove the page from the watchlist.
- preferences: use the preference settings.
- nochange: don't change the watchlist.
md5: MD5 hash (hex) of the text parameter or the prependtext and appendtext parameters concatenated. If this parameter is set and the hashes don't match, the edit is rejected. This can be used to guard against data corruption.
prependtext: Add this text to the beginning of the page. Overrides text.
appendtext: Add this text to the end of the page. Overrides text. Use section=new to append a new section.
undo: Revision ID to undo. Overrides text, prependtext and appendtext. 1.15+
undoafter: Undo all revisions from undo up to but not including this one. If not set, just undo one revision. 1.15+
redirect: Automatically resolve redirects. 1.17+
contentformat: Content serialization format used for the input text. Possible values: text/x-wiki (wikitext), text/javascript (javascript), text/css (css), text/plain (plain text), application/json (json). 1.21+
contentmodel: Content model of the new content. Possible values: wikitext, javascript, css, text and json. This list may include additional values registered by extensions; on Wikimedia wikis, these include JsonZeroConfig, Scribunto, JsonSchema. 1.21+
token: Edit token. Especially if you are not using the md5 parameter, the token should be sent as the last parameter, or at least after the text parameter, to prevent a bad edit from getting committed if transmission of the body is interrupted for some reason.
captchaid: CAPTCHA ID from the previous request. Although removed from the edit API in 1.18, edit confirmation extensions, such as Extension:ConfirmEdit, can still add their own parameters to the edit API. On Wikimedia wikis, these continue to be captchaid and captchaword, however different extensions use different parameters. (Removed in 1.18)
captchaword: Answer to the CAPTCHA. (Removed in 1.18)

Example[edit]

Note: In this example, all parameters are passed in a GET request just for the sake of simplicity. However, action=edit requires POST requests; GET requests will cause an error. Do not forget to set the Content-Type header of your request to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. The token that you received is terminated with +\, this needs to be urlencoded (so it will end with %2B%5C) before it is passed back. Adding a new section to en:Talk:Main Page

api.php?action=edit&title=Talk:Main_Page&section=new&summary=Hello%20World&text=Hello%20everyone!&watch&basetimestamp=2008-03-20T17:26:39Z&token=cecded1f35005d22904a35cc7b736e18%2B%5C [try in ApiSandbox]

CAPTCHAs and extension errors[edit]

If an edit requires a CAPTCHA, you'll get something like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<api>
  <edit result="Failure">
    <captcha type="math" mime="text/tex" id="509895952" question="36 + 4 = " />
  </edit>
</api>

The specific information you get will depend on the captcha in use. In most cases, you won't get a math CAPTCHA, but a URL to an image (in the url field). When you've solved the CAPTCHA, retry the request (in this case with captchaid=509895952&captchaword=40).

Other extensions that use the APIEditBeforeSave hook may return failure results using either the format described above or the usual error format.

Possible errors[edit]

In addition to the usual stuff:

Code	Info
notitle	The `title` parameter must be set.
notext	One of the text, appendtext, prependtext and undo parameters must be set
notoken	The `token` parameter must be set.
invalidsection	The section parameter must be set to an integer or 'new'
protectedtitle	This title has been protected from creation
cantcreate	You don't have permission to create new pages
cantcreate-anon	Anonymous users can't create new pages
articleexists	The article you tried to create has been created already.
noimageredirect-anon	Anonymous users can't create image redirects.
noimageredirect	You don't have permission to create image redirects.
spamdetected	Your edit was refused because it contained a spam fragment: "wikitext"
filtered	The filter callback function refused your edit
contenttoobig	The content you supplied exceeds the article size limit of bytes bytes
noedit-anon	Anonymous users can't edit pages
noedit	You don't have permission to edit pages
pagedeleted	The page has been deleted since you fetched its timestamp
emptypage	Creating new, empty pages is not allowed
emptynewsection	Creating empty new sections is not possible.
editconflict	Edit conflict detected
revwrongpage	revid is not a revision of "pagename" Thrown if an invalid revid is given for `undo` or `undoafter`
undofailure	Undo failed due to conflicting intermediate edits
missingtitle	(see above `nocreate` parameter)
mustbeposted	The edit module requires a POST request
readapidenied	You need read permission to use this module
writeapidenied	You're not allowed to edit this wiki through the API
noapiwrite	Editing of this wiki through the API is disabled. Make sure the $wgEnableWriteAPI=true; statement is included in the wiki's LocalSettings.php file
badtoken	Invalid token
missingparam	One of the parameters title, pageid is required
invalidparammix	The parameters title, pageid can not be used together
invalidtitle	Bad title "title"
nosuchpageid	There is no page with ID pageid
pagecannotexist	Namespace doesn't allow actual pages
nosuchrevid	There is no revision with ID undo
nosuchrevid	There is no revision with ID undoafter
undofailure	Undo failed due to conflicting intermediate edits
badmd5	The supplied MD5 hash was incorrect
hookaborted	The modification you tried to make was aborted by an extension hook
parseerror	Failed to parse the given text.
summaryrequired	Summary required
blocked	You have been blocked from editing
ratelimited	You've exceeded your rate limit. Please wait some time and try again
unknownerror	Unknown error: "retval"
nosuchsection	There is no such section.
sectionsnotsupported	Sections are not supported for this type of page.
editnotsupported	Editing of this type of page is not supported using the text based edit API.
appendnotsupported	This type of page can not be edited by appending or prepending text.
redirect-appendonly	You have attempted to edit using the "redirect"-following mode, which must be used in conjuction with section=new, prependtext, or appendtext.
badformat	The requested serialization format can not be applied to the page's content model
customcssprotected	You're not allowed to edit custom CSS pages
customjsprotected	You're not allowed to edit custom JavaScript pages
taggingnotallowed	You don't have permission to set change tags

Examples[edit]

Editing via Ajax[edit]

Below is sample code for editing a page via an Ajax request:

function addNewSection( summary, content, editToken ) {
    $.ajax({
        url: mw.util.wikiScript( 'api' ),
        data: {
            format: 'json',
            action: 'edit',
            title: mw.config.get( 'wgPageName' ),
            section: 'new',
            summary: summary,
            text: content,
            token: editToken
        },
        dataType: 'json',
        type: 'POST',
        success: function( data ) {
            if ( data && data.edit && data.edit.result == 'Success' ) {
                window.location.reload(); // reload page if edit was successful
            } else if ( data && data.error ) {
                alert( 'Error: API returned error code "' + data.error.code + '": ' + data.error.info );
            } else {
                alert( 'Error: Unknown result from API.' );
            }
        },
        error: function( xhr ) {
            alert( 'Error: Request failed.' );
        }
    });
}

You can also use the mw.Api object:

var api = new mw.Api();

function addNewSection( summary, content ) {
	api.postWithToken( "edit", {
		action: "edit",
		title: mw.config.get( "wgPageName" ),
		section: "new",
		summary: summary,
		text: content
	} ).done( function( result, jqXHR ) {
		mw.log( "Saved successfully" );
		location.reload();
	} ).fail( function( code, result ) {
		if ( code === "http" ) {
			mw.log( "HTTP error: " + result.textStatus ); // result.xhr contains the jqXHR object
		} else if ( code === "ok-but-empty" ) {
			mw.log( "Got an empty response from the server" );
		} else {
			mw.log( "API error: " + code );
		}
	} );
}

Remember to make sure the mediawiki.api.edit module is loaded when using this methodology.

Editing via Python[edit]

/Editing with Python

Large texts[edit]

When using texts over 8000 characters, use "multipart/form-data" as it does not require escaping and will be significantly smaller than its urlencoded counterpart. Multipart has roughly 160 bytes of overhead for each parameter, so for seven parameters that's ~1.1kb overhead. Example:

POST /w/api.php HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: Bot Framework
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=---------------------------8ce61ec834cf268
Host: en.wikipedia.org
Cookie: <removed>
Content-Length: 1348
Accept-Encoding: gzip
Connection: Keep-Alive


-----------------------------8ce61ec834cf268
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="action"

edit
-----------------------------8ce61ec834cf268
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="title"
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Title here
-----------------------------8ce61ec834cf268
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="text"
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Text here
-----------------------------8ce61ec834cf268
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="summary"
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Summary
-----------------------------8ce61ec834cf268
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="token"

1f287ba00a908e9622045e7b18ffa352+\
-----------------------------8ce61ec834cf268
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="assert"

user
-----------------------------8ce61ec834cf268
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="format"

xml
-----------------------------8ce61ec834cf268--

The following documentation is the output of Special:ApiHelp/edit, automatically generated by the pre-release version of MediaWiki that is running on this site (MediaWiki.org).

action=edit

(main | edit)

This module requires read rights.
This module requires write rights.
This module only accepts POST requests.
Source: MediaWiki
License: GPL-2.0+

Create and edit pages.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/API:Edit

Parameters:

title

Title of the page to edit. Cannot be used together with pageid.

pageid

Page ID of the page to edit. Cannot be used together with title.

Type: integer

section

Section number. 0 for the top section, new for a new section.

sectiontitle

The title for a new section.

text

Page content.

summary

Edit summary. Also section title when section=new and sectiontitle is not set.

tags

Change tags to apply to the revision.

Values (separate with | or alternative):

minor

Minor edit.

Type: boolean (details)

notminor

Non-minor edit.

Type: boolean (details)

bot

Mark this edit as a bot edit.

Type: boolean (details)

basetimestamp

Timestamp of the base revision, used to detect edit conflicts. May be obtained through action=query&prop=revisions&rvprop=timestamp.

Type: timestamp (allowed formats)

starttimestamp

Timestamp when the editing process began, used to detect edit conflicts. An appropriate value may be obtained using curtimestamp when beginning the edit process (e.g. when loading the page content to edit).

Type: timestamp (allowed formats)

recreate

Override any errors about the page having been deleted in the meantime.

Type: boolean (details)

createonly

Don't edit the page if it exists already.

Type: boolean (details)

nocreate

Throw an error if the page doesn't exist.

Type: boolean (details)

watch

Deprecated.

Add the page to the current user's watchlist.

Type: boolean (details)

unwatch

Deprecated.

Remove the page from the current user's watchlist.

Type: boolean (details)

watchlist

Unconditionally add or remove the page from the current user's watchlist, use preferences or do not change watch.

One of the following values: watch, unwatch, preferences, nochange

Default: preferences

md5

The MD5 hash of the text parameter, or the prependtext and appendtext parameters concatenated. If set, the edit won't be done unless the hash is correct.

prependtext

Add this text to the beginning of the page. Overrides text.

appendtext

Add this text to the end of the page. Overrides text.

Use section=new to append a new section, rather than this parameter.

undo

Undo this revision. Overrides text, prependtext and appendtext.

Type: integer

undoafter

Undo all revisions from undo to this one. If not set, just undo one revision.

Type: integer

redirect

Automatically resolve redirects.

Type: boolean (details)

contentformat

Content serialization format used for the input text.

One of the following values: application/json, text/x-wiki, text/javascript, text/css, text/plain

contentmodel

Content model of the new content.

One of the following values: GadgetDefinition, SecurePoll, MassMessageListContent, flow-board, JsonSchema, wikitext, javascript, json, css, text, Scribunto

token

A "csrf" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

The token should always be sent as the last parameter, or at least after the text parameter.

This parameter is required.

captchaword

Answer to the CAPTCHA

captchaid

CAPTCHA ID from previous request

Examples:

Edit a page.: api.php?action=edit&title=Test&summary=test%20summary&text=article%20content&basetimestamp=2007-08-24T12:34:54Z&token=123ABC [open in sandbox]
Prepend __NOTOC__ to a page.: api.php?action=edit&title=Test&summary=NOTOC&minor=&prependtext=__NOTOC__%0A&basetimestamp=2007-08-24T12:34:54Z&token=123ABC [open in sandbox]
Undo revisions 13579 through 13585 with autosummary.: api.php?action=edit&title=Test&undo=13585&undoafter=13579&basetimestamp=2007-08-24T12:34:54Z&token=123ABC [open in sandbox]

API:Edit

Contents

Token[edit]

Unregistered users[edit]

Editing pages[edit]

Parameters[edit]

Example[edit]

CAPTCHAs and extension errors[edit]

Possible errors[edit]

Examples[edit]

Editing via Ajax[edit]

Editing via Python[edit]

Large texts[edit]

action=edit

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