jsonmediawikiwikipediawikipedia-apimediawiki-api

Searching Wikipedia using the API

I want to search Wikipedia using the query action. I am using this URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&list=search&srsearch=apple

That works, but I want to get into the first result of the search. How can I do that?

Note: That URL works fine when there is only one result... I just need the title and some short description.

Solution

  • I don't think you can do both in one query.

    1. To get the first result, use the Opensearch API.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=opensearch&search=zyz&limit=1&namespace=0&format=jsonfm

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php
?action=opensearch
&search=zyz          # Search query
&limit=1             # Return only the first result
&namespace=0         # Search only articles, ignoring Talk, Mediawiki, etc.
&format=json         # 'jsonfm' prints the JSON in HTML for debugging.

    This will return:

    [
    "Zyz",
    [
        "Zyzomys"
    ],
    [
        ""
    ],
    [
        "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyzomys"
    ]
]

    2. You now have the article name of the first search result. To get the article's first paragram (or description, as you call it), see my answer here: Get the first lines of a Wikipedia article