Extension:JSON

MediaWiki extensions manual

JSON Release status: experimental
Implementation	Hook
Description	Allows using the JSON syntax to add semantic annotations to a wiki page.
Author(s)	Jie Bao (baojietalk)
Latest version	0.1 (2012-05-12)
MediaWiki	1.17+
Database changes	No
License	GNU GPL v3 or later, MIT License
Download	Subversion [Help] Browse source code #Change Log
Hooks used ParserFirstCallInit LanguageGetMagic
Translate the JSON extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Check usage and version matrix; code metrics

The JSON extension simplifies modelling complex data structure on a semantic wiki using the JSON syntax. It is an extension of the Semantic MediaWiki extension.

What this extension does

This extension introduces a parser function "json". Example: suppose we are on page Foo with the wiki script:

{{#json:
{
  "name" : "John", 
  "address" : {
    "city" : "Boston",
  }
}
}}

The JSON extension will create the following triples

Foo#json1 name John
Foo#json1 address Foo#json2
Foo#json2 city Boston
Foo Has_subobject Foo#json1
Foo Has_subobject Foo#json2

Property:Has subobject is a special property defined by SMW since 1.7

Without using the JSON syntax, a wiki editor may have to explicitly create a set of short wiki pages or SMW subobjects (> SMW 1.7). The JSON syntax is shorter, and makes it easier to import data from JSON-enabled Web APIs.

Dependency

This extension is dependent on SMW 1.7 or later. It will not work without SMW.

Download and install

Download

http://smwbp.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/mediawiki/extensions/JSON/JSON.php

or use SVN

svn co http://smwbp.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/mediawiki/extensions/JSON/JSON.php

Add the code to the "WIKI-PATH/extentions/JSON" folder.

Then append the following to LocalSettings.php of your MediaWiki installation:

require_once ( "$IP/extensions/JSON/JSON.php" );

Usage

Syntax:

{{#json:
 THE OBJECT IN JSON FORMAT
}}

You can query the generated semantic annotation using ask query as usual. To browse, e.g., Foo#json1, go to

Special:Browse/Foo-23json1

The extension introduces two special properties

• Property:Has JSON container - link a JSON node (a JSON object or part of it) to the page that contains it
• Property:Has JSON parent - link a JSON node to its parent node

In the example given at the beginning, the following additional triples will be generated:

Foo#json1 Has_JSON_container Foo
Foo#json2 Has_JSON_container Foo
Foo#json1 Has_JSON_parent Foo
Foo#json2 Has_JSON_parent Foo#json1

Print a table of JSON nodes on a page, their parent JSON node, and their "name" property if exists.

{{#ask:
[[Has JSON container::{{PAGENAME}}]]
|?Has JSON parent
|?name
}}

Print the hierarchy of JSON objects contained on a page (this query requires Semantic Result Format 1.7.1 for tree format):

{{#ask:
[[Has JSON container::{{PAGENAME}}]]
|format=tree
|parent=Has JSON parent
}}

Limitations

Currently the extension does not support list

Related Extensions

• Extension:External Data - retrieve data from external sources with various formats, including JSON.