Localization in v2 - all errors AND warnings are localized in default language unless lang= is given, in which case you can get parameter array or a non-default language. All standard translation magic (plural/gender/etc) will be supported. Warnings will always include a warning code. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/API_Future#Errors_and_Warnings_Localization
I was thinking of getting it done fairly early in APIv2 (next few weeks), so please post/email your browser-based api use cases and preferences. API internals already contain methods to report errors (dieUsage) and setting warnings, and the later will be expanded to support warning codes. Open implementation questions: how better to provide translation maps so that an extension could easily raise common and extension specific errors, and so that the translation could be done on both the server and the client (preferable). On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Brad Jorsch <bjor...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > I'm going to copy this to the mediawiki-api list, too. > > On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 8:01 AM, Daniel Kinzler <dan...@brightbyte.de> > wrote: > > Hi all! > > > > Wikidata (technically, Wikibase) uses a lot of JS/API based editing, and > we have > > several times hit upon the question of how to best report errors from > the API. > > I'll try to break the issue down into several concrete questions. But > first off, > > the status quo as I understand it: > > > > * errors are reported using an error code (a string) and a free form > error > > message. The message is usually not internationalized, though sometimes > it is. > > * warnings are reported as free form text. > > * Additional information can be added to both errors and warnings, but > there is > > no standard way to do this. > > * Errors exposed by the API are often not generated but just passed > through by > > the API; Typically, a generic error code is used with the original error > message > > (e.g. from an exception). > > Sounds generally correct. Anything coming out of the API > internationalized is probably either being passed through from > something else or being generated in an extension. > > > So, here are my questions: > > > > * Should error messages returned by the API be translated? Or should the > > translation be left to JavaScript in the client? > > ** In both cases, it would be nice to have a consistent relationship > between > > error codes and the corresponding system message. > > ** If translation is done on the client, we need to pass any message > parameters > > separately. > > ** The message key would have to somehow be derived or mapped from the > error code. > > It would be nice to have internationalized and parameterized error > messages from the API. The problem is that if we want to do anything > without waiting for "API version 2", we want to avoid as much as > possible breaking backwards compatibility with existing clients. Which > probably means that we'll want to add a parameter for the client to > specify the new style errors and warnings; this can double as > selecting the language the errors should be returned in. > > I'd have to look at what existing code does as far as errors/warnings > before making a more concrete proposal. > > > * When using system messages to translate the error codes from the API, > these > > messages will often contain wikitext. How can we best avoid this? > Wikitext is > > likely to be quite useless to the client - it would be better to return > HTML; or > > pass all the message keys and parameters, and let the client generate > the message. > > I'd suggest that messages actually returned by the API should be in > plain text, and should ''not'' use the MediaWiki namespace. In terms > of the Message class, $msg->useDatabase( false )->text(). This makes > things sensible for bots and such; they will often be writing errors > to a log file or showing them in some user interface where HTML > parsing is probably not available. > > The message key and parameters should (optionally?) be returned for > the client to format as HTML or whatever. And the client is welcome to > use the MediaWiki namespace. This is sensible for Javascript user > interface and such. > > Unfortunately, it seems that the message key prefix "api-error-" is > already in use. > > > * Status objects are often used to collect errors and warnings the occur > while > > trying to perform some task. It would be nice if the API would provide a > > standard way to put the contents of a Status object into the result > (well, at > > least the errors and warnings). > > It seems it does, at least sort of: ApiResult has a > convertStatusToArray() method. > > > Any thoughts on that? > > > > -- daniel > > _______________________________________________ > Mediawiki-api mailing list > mediawiki-...@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-api > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
