Test if an article exist or not

[Hunsu]

Is there any function to test if an article exist or not? I have looked to some bots code that I have found and to test if an article exist or not they do :

return !mw.getArticle(title).getText().isEmpty();

If an article is empty (but it exist) this will return false.

PS: This library has many functionalities but it's hard to figure out how to use it.

[eldur]

Sorry there is no function like this, but if you need such function take a look at GetRevision. This class maps absent revision to an empty article. Hope this helps?

Do you have ideas how to make it easier to use the functionalities?

[lorinczz]

Parse the missing field of API result and add exists getter to Article. Redirect information is available only at prop=info :(

[eldur]

Feels strange to get an article and then check if it is exists. Or?

btw: why do you need to know the difference between an empty or absent article?

[Hunsu]

Thanks I will look at it.

I think the library is missing documentation. I was using another library and that library have a function that return all the articles in in given category. It took me a lot of time to figure out how replace this function with this library.

I have also other questions:

• Why LIMIT is 50. MediaWiki can return up to 5000 results for bots. In the library we can't change it. I have a bot that make changes on articles that are in given category, the category contains more than 100 000 articles. The bot now will make a lot of request to the server.
• Why are the save, get methods are syncronized? Two threads can save two diffents articles in the same time and this won't lead to any error.
• Why there are methods that are coded like this:

public foo(Type bar){ ... return bar; }

[eldur]

• For the lack of documentation: I'm not very good in writing docs (see #22, #23, ...), but if you are, feel free to help us.
• For the LIMIT: I've also thought about this. What do you think about to create a new issue about configurable limits?
• For the other points: You are right, feels strange. Can you give me a hint where your last finding is?

[lorinczz]

To be able to use foo(bar) in expressions. Very useful.

[eldur]

do you mean this :wink: https://github.com/eldur/jwbf/search?q=foo

[Hunsu]

I mean this function:

public synchronized <T extends ContentProcessable> T getPerformedAction(T answer) { // TODO transform to throttled performAction(answer); return answer; }

We don't see what the method do. It's the first time I see a method written like this. We don't know what object was changed.

I will try to help when I have time and when I figure out how things work.

[eldur]

At the beginning of this project, immutability wasn't favored as now. So this method mutates the given answer and returns it, so it helps to save lines.

AnyRequest request = ... 
return b.getPerformedAction(request).getWhatever();

vs.

AnyRequest request = ... 
b.performAction(request)
return request.getWhatever();

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface

[eldur]

I tend to close this issue, because the question could be answered with

bot.readDataOpt("ArticleName").isPresent()

[Hunsu]

Why not create it as a function in MediaWikiBot?

[eldur]

because it could save a request

MediaWikiBot bot = createNewBot();
if (bot.isArticlePresent("ArticleName")) { // first request to API
  doSomenthingWith(bot.readData("ArticleName")); // second request to API
} else {
  // whatever
}

vs.

MediaWikiBot bot = createNewBot();
Optional<SimpleArticle> result = bot.readDataOpt("ArticleName"); // the only request to API
if (result.isPresent()) {
  doSomenthingWith(result);
} else {
  // whatever
}