Manual:watchlist table

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MediaWiki database layout

watchlist table

The watchlist table for each registered user contains their ID and for all the pages the user watches, the namespace number, the page title without namespace, and a notification timestamp, used for page change notification.

MediaWiki works with the assumption that when people watch pages they either watch both the talk page and the normal page, or neither. That means that for each watched page MediaWiki always automatically adds two entries: One for the page and one for its talk page. E.g. when the user watches the Main Page, then there will be two rows in the database table: One for the Main Page in namespace 0 and one for the Main Page in namespace 1 (which is the according talk page). Missing page rows are added by the maintenance script update.php.

Fields

wl_id

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.27

This is the primary key for the table.

wl_user

This is the key to user.user_id .

wl_namespace

This is the key to page_namespace .

wl_title

This is the key to page_title .

wl_notificationtimestamp

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.4

This is the timestamp of the first change to the page made by another user after the last visit by the watching user; the timestamp is cleared when the user visits the page. When the timestamp is updated, notification email may be sent.

The timestamp is always cleared (made NULL) when the user visits the page, whatever their personal settings, as long as either of $wgUseEnotif or $wgShowUpdatedMarker is true.

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.26

Since git #836ad263, the timestamp update may be deferred to the job queue.

Schema summary

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.27

DESCRIBE watchlist;

+--------------------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field                    | Type             | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+--------------------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| wl_id                    | int(10) unsigned | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| wl_user                  | int(10) unsigned | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| wl_namespace             | int(11)          | NO   | MUL | 0       |                |
| wl_title                 | varbinary(255)   | NO   |     |         |                |
| wl_notificationtimestamp | varbinary(14)    | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
+--------------------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

MediaWiki versions:

1.10 – 1.26

DESCRIBE watchlist;

+--------------------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field                    | Type             | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------------------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| wl_user                  | int(10) unsigned | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| wl_namespace             | int(11)          | NO   | PRI | 0       |       |
| wl_title                 | varbinary(255)   | NO   | PRI |         |       |
| wl_notificationtimestamp | varbinary(14)    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+--------------------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

MediaWiki versions:

1.6 – 1.9

DESCRIBE watchlist;

+--------------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field                    | Type                | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| wl_user                  | int(5) unsigned     | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| wl_namespace             | int(11)             | NO   | PRI | 0       |       |
| wl_title                 | varchar(255) binary | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| wl_notificationtimestamp | varchar(14) binary  | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+--------------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

MediaWiki version:

1.5

DESCRIBE watchlist;

+--------------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field                    | Type                | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| wl_user                  | int(5) unsigned     | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| wl_namespace             | int(11)             | NO   | PRI | 0       |       |
| wl_title                 | varchar(255) binary | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| wl_notificationtimestamp | varchar(14) binary  | NO   |     | NULL    |       |
+--------------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

MediaWiki versions:

1.1 – 1.4

DESCRIBE watchlist;

+--------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field        | Type                | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| wl_user      | int(5) unsigned     | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| wl_namespace | tinyint(2) unsigned | NO   | PRI | 0       |       |
| wl_title     | varchar(255) binary | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
+--------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

Indexes

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.36

SHOW INDEX IN watchlist;

+-----------+------------+-------------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+
| Table     | Non_unique | Key_name                      | Seq_in_index | Column_name              | Collation | Cardinality | Sub_part | Packed | Null | Index_type | Comment | Index_comment |
+-----------+------------+-------------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+
| watchlist |          0 | PRIMARY                       |            1 | wl_id                    | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| watchlist |          0 | wl_user                       |            1 | wl_user                  | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| watchlist |          0 | wl_user                       |            2 | wl_namespace             | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| watchlist |          0 | wl_user                       |            3 | wl_title                 | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| watchlist |          1 | wl_namespace_title            |            1 | wl_namespace             | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| watchlist |          1 | wl_namespace_title            |            2 | wl_title                 | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| watchlist |          1 | wl_user_notificationtimestamp |            1 | wl_user                  | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| watchlist |          1 | wl_user_notificationtimestamp |            2 | wl_notificationtimestamp | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   | YES  | BTREE      |         |               |
+-----------+------------+-------------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+

See also

• purgeExpiredWatchlistItems.php – maintenance script for deleting expired items from the watchlist and watchlist_expiry tables.