Extension:PhpTags/Magic expressions

Magic expressions is the concept of using the expressions of the Magic words as a single entity.

This concept allows you to create and use non-monolithic MediaWiki extensions, which greatly increases the convenience, flexibility and performance.

Motivation

All of the MediaWiki extensions that enhance the wikitext parser with helpful functions use the Magic words technique.

The main limitation is inability to direct data transfer between Magic words. For this reason, the MediaWiki extensions are either monolithic or have low performance because of the inability to use a more effective way.

The concept of Magic expressions is intended to solve this problem. It allows to build an expression of the words associated with the functions of the MediaWiki extensions, with data directly transferred from one the MediaWiki extension to another.

This concept allows you to use a programming language for writing expressions instead of using wiki markup syntax. For example the PhpTags extension uses the syntax of PHP language.

MediaWiki extensions according to this concept should have functions to get data from different sources, the data processing functions and display. Editors themselves determine how to get information, how to handle it and how to display. This gives complete freedom for creativity.

Implementation

• The PhpTags extension and compatible extensions.