MediaWiki version:
1.13

POST request to edit a page.

API documentation


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-or-later

Create and edit pages.

Specific parameters:
Other general parameters are available.
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 identifier. 0 for the top section, new for a new section. Often a positive integer, but can also be non-numeric.

sectiontitle

The title for a new section when using section=new.

text

Page content.

summary

Edit summary.

When this parameter is not provided or empty, an edit summary may be generated automatically.

When using section=new and sectiontitle is not provided, the value of this parameter is used for the section title instead, and an edit summary is generated automatically.

tags

Change tags to apply to the revision.

Values (separate with | or alternative): convenient-discussions, possible vandalism, repeating characters
minor

Mark this edit as a minor edit.

Type: boolean (details)
notminor

Do not mark this edit as a minor edit even if the "Mark all edits minor by default" user preference is set.

Type: boolean (details)
bot

Mark this edit as a bot edit.

Type: boolean (details)
baserevid

ID of the base revision, used to detect edit conflicts. May be obtained through action=query&prop=revisions. Self-conflicts cause the edit to fail unless basetimestamp is set.

Type: integer
basetimestamp

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

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 (ignored for bot users) or do not change watch.

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

Watchlist expiry timestamp. Omit this parameter entirely to leave the current expiry unchanged.

Type: expiry (details)
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 or section. Overrides text.

appendtext

Add this text to the end of the page or section. 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
The value must be no less than 0.
undoafter

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

Type: integer
The value must be no less than 0.
redirect

Automatically resolve redirects.

Type: boolean (details)
contentformat

Content serialization format used for the input text.

One of the following values: application/json, application/octet-stream, application/unknown, application/x-binary, text/css, text/javascript, text/plain, text/unknown, text/x-wiki, unknown/unknown
contentmodel

Content model of the new content.

One of the following values: GadgetDefinition, Json.JsonConfig, JsonSchema, Map.JsonConfig, MassMessageListContent, NewsletterContent, Scribunto, SecurePoll, Tabular.JsonConfig, css, flow-board, javascript, json, sanitized-css, text, translate-messagebundle, unknown, wikitext
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.
returnto

Page title. If saving the edit created a temporary account, the API may respond with an URL that the client should visit to complete logging in. If this parameter is provided, the URL will redirect to the given page, instead of the page that was edited.

Type: page title
Accepts non-existent pages.
returntoquery

URL query parameters (with leading ?). If saving the edit created a temporary account, the API may respond with an URL that the client should visit to complete logging in. If this parameter is provided, the URL will redirect to a page with the given query parameters.

Default: (empty)
returntoanchor

URL fragment (with leading #). If saving the edit created a temporary account, the API may respond with an URL that the client should visit to complete logging in. If this parameter is provided, the URL will redirect to a page with the given fragment.

Default: (empty)
captchaword

Answer to the CAPTCHA

captchaid

CAPTCHA ID from previous request

Example

The sample code in this example is in Python. See API:Edit/Editing with Ajax for examples and responses in Ajax .

POST request

Making edits, and, indeed, any POST request, is a multi-step process.

1. Log in, via one of the methods described in API:Login . Note that while this is required to correctly attribute the edit to its author, many wikis do allow users to edit without registering or logging into an account.
2. GET a CSRF token :


3. Send a POST request, with the CSRF token, to take action on a page:


The Response section below is for the final POST request, to take action on the page. See the pages on API:Login and API:Tokens for the intermediary JSON responses to earlier steps.

Also note that the tokens in the queries on this page are sample values. Actual tokens are unique to each login session and cross-site request. They are included only to demonstrate how to properly format queries.

Response

{
    "edit": {
        "result": "Success",
        "pageid": 94542,
        "title": "Wikipedia:Sandbox",
        "contentmodel": "wikitext",
        "oldrevid": 371705,
        "newrevid": 371707,
        "newtimestamp": "2018-12-18T16:59:42Z"
    }
}

Sample code

Python

#!/usr/bin/python3

"""
    edit.py

    MediaWiki API Demos
    Demo of `Edit` module: POST request to edit a page
    MIT license
"""

import requests

S = requests.Session()

URL = "https://test.wikipedia.org/w/api.php"

# Step 1: GET request to fetch login token
PARAMS_0 = {
    "action": "query",
    "meta": "tokens",
    "type": "login",
    "format": "json"
}

R = S.get(url=URL, params=PARAMS_0)
DATA = R.json()

LOGIN_TOKEN = DATA['query']['tokens']['logintoken']

# Step 2: POST request to log in. Use of main account for login is not
# supported. Obtain credentials via Special:BotPasswords
# (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:BotPasswords) for lgname & lgpassword
PARAMS_1 = {
    "action": "login",
    "lgname": "bot_user_name",
    "lgpassword": "bot_password",
    "lgtoken": LOGIN_TOKEN,
    "format": "json"
}

R = S.post(URL, data=PARAMS_1)

# Step 3: GET request to fetch CSRF token
PARAMS_2 = {
    "action": "query",
    "meta": "tokens",
    "format": "json"
}

R = S.get(url=URL, params=PARAMS_2)
DATA = R.json()

CSRF_TOKEN = DATA['query']['tokens']['csrftoken']

# Step 4: POST request to edit a page
PARAMS_3 = {
    "action": "edit",
    "title": "Project:Sandbox",
    "token": CSRF_TOKEN,
    "format": "json",
    "appendtext": "Hello"
}

R = S.post(URL, data=PARAMS_3)
DATA = R.json()

print(DATA)

PHP

<?php

/*
    edit.php

    MediaWiki API Demos
    Demo of `Edit` module: POST request to edit a page
    MIT license
*/

$endPoint = "https://test.wikipedia.org/w/api.php";

$login_Token = getLoginToken(); // Step 1
loginRequest( $login_Token ); // Step 2
$csrf_Token = getCSRFToken(); // Step 3
editRequest($csrf_Token); // Step 4

// Step 1: GET request to fetch login token
function getLoginToken() {
	global $endPoint;

	$params1 = [
		"action" => "query",
		"meta" => "tokens",
		"type" => "login",
		"format" => "json"
	];

	$url = $endPoint . "?" . http_build_query( $params1 );

	$ch = curl_init( $url );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "cookie.txt" );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "cookie.txt" );

	$output = curl_exec( $ch );
	curl_close( $ch );

	$result = json_decode( $output, true );
	return $result["query"]["tokens"]["logintoken"];
}

// Step 2: POST request to log in. Use of main account for login is not
// supported. Obtain credentials via Special:BotPasswords
// (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:BotPasswords) for lgname & lgpassword
function loginRequest( $logintoken ) {
	global $endPoint;

	$params2 = [
		"action" => "login",
		"lgname" => "bot_user_name",
		"lgpassword" => "bot_password",
		"lgtoken" => $logintoken,
		"format" => "json"
	];

	$ch = curl_init();

	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, $endPoint );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, true );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query( $params2 ) );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "cookie.txt" );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "cookie.txt" );

	$output = curl_exec( $ch );
	curl_close( $ch );

}

// Step 3: GET request to fetch CSRF token
function getCSRFToken() {
	global $endPoint;

	$params3 = [
		"action" => "query",
		"meta" => "tokens",
		"format" => "json"
	];

	$url = $endPoint . "?" . http_build_query( $params3 );

	$ch = curl_init( $url );

	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "cookie.txt" );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "cookie.txt" );

	$output = curl_exec( $ch );
	curl_close( $ch );

	$result = json_decode( $output, true );
	return $result["query"]["tokens"]["csrftoken"];
}

// Step 4: POST request to edit a page
function editRequest( $csrftoken ) {
	global $endPoint;

	$params4 = [
		"action" => "edit",
		"title" => "Project:Sandbox",
		"appendtext" => "Hello",
		"token" => $csrftoken,
		"format" => "json"
	];

	$ch = curl_init();

	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, $endPoint );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, true );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query( $params4 ) );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "cookie.txt" );
	curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "cookie.txt" );

	$output = curl_exec( $ch );
	curl_close( $ch );

	echo ( $output );
}

JavaScript

/*  
    edit.js
 
    MediaWiki API Demos
    Demo of `Edit` module: POST request to edit a page

    MIT license
*/

var request = require('request').defaults({jar: true}),
    url = "https://test.wikipedia.org/w/api.php";

// Step 1: GET request to fetch login token
function getLoginToken() {
    var params_0 = {
        action: "query",
        meta: "tokens",
        type: "login",
        format: "json"
    };

    request.get({ url: url, qs: params_0 }, function (error, res, body) {
        if (error) {
            return;
        }
        var data = JSON.parse(body);
        loginRequest(data.query.tokens.logintoken);
    });
}

// Step 2: POST request to log in. 
// Use of main account for login is not
// supported. Obtain credentials via Special:BotPasswords
// (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:BotPasswords) for lgname & lgpassword
function loginRequest(login_token) {
    var params_1 = {
        action: "login",
        lgname: "bot_username",
        lgpassword: "bot_password",
        lgtoken: login_token,
        format: "json"
    };

    request.post({ url: url, form: params_1 }, function (error, res, body) {
        if (error) {
            return;
        }
        getCsrfToken();
    });
}

// Step 3: GET request to fetch CSRF token
function getCsrfToken() {
    var params_2 = {
        action: "query",
        meta: "tokens",
        format: "json"
    };

    request.get({ url: url, qs: params_2 }, function(error, res, body) {
        if (error) {
            return;
        }
        var data = JSON.parse(body);
        editRequest(data.query.tokens.csrftoken);
    });
}

// Step 4: POST request to edit a page
function editRequest(csrf_token) {
    var params_3 = {
        action: "edit",
        title: "Project:Sandbox",
        appendtext: "test edit",
        token: csrf_token,
        format: "json"
    };

    request.post({ url: url, form: params_3 }, function (error, res, body) {
        if (error) {
            return;
        }
        console.log(body);
    });
}

// Start From Step 1
getLoginToken();

MediaWiki JS

/*
	edit.js

	MediaWiki API Demos
	Demo of `Edit` module: POST request to edit a page

	MIT License
*/

var params = {
		action: 'edit',
		title: 'Project:Sandbox',
		appendtext: 'Hello',
		format: 'json'
	},
	api = new mw.Api();

api.postWithToken( 'csrf', params ).done( function ( data ) {
	console.log( data );
} );

User cases

Edit conflicts

The Python sample is a basic implementation of an edit request by a registered user. In real-world scenarios, care should be taken to prevent edit conflicts. These occur when two or more users are attempting to edit the same page at the same time.

Conflicts can be prevented by retrieving the last revision timestamp when we request a CSRF token. Adding prop=info|revisions to the CSRF token request in Step 3 allows us to access the timestamp for the last revision. This timestamp will be used as the basetimestamp when we make our the edit request.

We also need the exact time when we start our edit. This can be retrieved by adding curtimestamp to the CSRF request as well. This value will serve as our starttimestamp.

Finally, in the actual edit request, set the basetimestamp and starttimestamp parameters, like so:



Large edits

POST requests containing large amounts of text content (8000+ characters) should be sent with Content-Type: multipart/form-data indicated in the header. Because multipart/form-data does not need to add HTML escape characters (i.e., percent encoding) for spaces and punctuation, the amount of data passed will subsequently be much smaller than the percent-encoded equivalent.

However, there is still some overhead added by multipart/form-data -- roughly, 160 bytes per parameter. For short messages that don't require adding many escape characters, this amount of overhead can be inefficient, and percent-encoding is preferred.[1]

Note that in our Python sample code, the request is percent-encoded by default.

See the MDN web docs for a more technical discussion of content-type and POST requests. See the Python Requests documentation for how to pass multipart/form-data using syntax similar to our Python sample code.

CAPTCHAs

If the wiki you are targeting uses CAPTCHAs , your request may return an error containing an id number and a simple test, such as a question, a math problem, or an URL to an image. In order to complete your edit, you must complete the test, then retry your request with the id and the correct answer(s) appended to the original query string, like so: captchaid=sampleId&captchaword=answer

Other CAPTCHA systems and extensions may use different parameters for similar use. In general, use the field names for the id and test questions as the parameters in your second request.

Possible errors

Code Info
notitle The title parameter must be set.
missingparam At least one of the parameters text, appendtext and undo is required.
notoken The token parameter must be set.
invalidsection The section parameter must be a valid section ID or new.
protectedpage This page has been protected to prevent editing or other actions.
cantcreate You do not have permission to create new pages.
cantcreate-anon Anonymous users can't create new pages
articleexists The page 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.
abusefilter-warning This action has been automatically identified as harmful.
abusefilter-disallowed This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed.
contenttoobig The content you supplied exceeds the page size limit of bytes kibibytes.
Where bytes is the value of $wgMaxArticleSize .
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.
revwrongpage rrevid is not a revision of pagename.
Thrown if an invalid revid is given for undo or undoafter
undofailure The edit could not be undone due to conflicting intermediate edits.
missingtitle The page you specified doesn't exist.
(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.
badtoken Invalid CSRF token.
missingparam The title, pageid parameter must be set.
invalidparammix The parameters title, pageid can not be used together.
invalidtitle Bad title "title".
invalid-content-data Invalid content data
occurs when trying to edit a JSON page with non-conforming data, or while trying to edit a MassMessageListContent page
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.
badmd5 The supplied MD5 hash was incorrect.
hookaborted The modification you tried to make was aborted by an extension.
parseerror Content serialization failed: parseerror
summaryrequired ⧼apierror-summaryrequired⧽
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 section $1.
sectionsnotsupported Sections are not supported for content model $1.
editnotsupported Editing of this type of page is not supported using the text based edit API.
appendnotsupported Can't append to pages using content model $1.
redirect-appendonly You have attempted to edit using the redirect-following mode, which must be used in conjunction with section=new, prependtext, or appendtext.
edit-invalidredirect Cannot edit $1 while following redirects, as target $2 is not valid.
badformat The requested format $1 is not supported for content model $2 used by $3.
customcssprotected You do not have permission to edit this CSS page because it contains another user's personal settings.
customjsprotected You do not have permission to edit this JavaScript page because it contains another user's personal settings.
taggingnotallowed You don't have permission to set change tags
badtags The tag "Tag" is not allowed to be manually applied.
The following tags are not allowed to be manually applied: Tag1, Tag2
tpt-target-page This page cannot be updated manually.

This page is a translation of the page $1 and the translation can be updated using [$2 the translation tool].
When using Extension:Translate , editing of a translated subpage is not allowed.

Parameter history

  • v1.35: Introduced baserevid
  • v1.25: Introduced tags
  • v1.21: Introduced contentformat, contentmodel
  • v1.20: Introduced pageid
  • v1.19: Introduced sectiontitle
  • v1.18: Deprecated captchaid, captchaword
  • v1.17: Introduced redirect
  • v1.16: Deprecated watch, unwatch
  • v1.16: Introduced watchlist
  • v1.15: Introduced undo, undoafter
  • v1.14: Introduced starttimestamp

Additional notes

  • Log in is not strictly required by the API, but it is needed to correctly attribute the edit to its author. A successful edit from a user who is not logged in will be attributed to their IP address.
  • Bots that are not logged in may face restrictions on editing and other write requests; see Manual:Creating a bot#Logging in for more details.
  • Users who are not logged in will always be given the empty CSRF token, +\.
  • The process for requesting a token has changed several times across versions. See API:Tokens for more information.
  • ResourceLoader provides a way to access edit tokens when running code within a wiki page.
  • You can use the same CSRF token for all edit operations across the same wiki, during a single login session.
  • It is a good practice to pass any tokens in your request at the end of the query string, or at least after the text parameter. That way, if the connection is interrupted, the token will not be passed and the edit will fail. If you are using the mw.Api object to make requests, this is done automatically.
  • Although captchaid and captchaword have, technically, been removed from API:Edit since v1.18, Extension:ConfirmEdit extends API:Edit to work with CAPTCHAs. Thus, with ConfirmEdit installed, these parameters are still available. ConfirmEdit comes packaged with the MediaWiki software, v1.18+.

See also

References