Content of infobox of Wikipedia

Question

I need to get the content of an infobox of any movie. I know the name of the movie. One way is to get the complete content of a Wikipedia page and then parse it until I find {{Infobox and then get the content of the infobox.

Is there any other way for the same using some API or parser?

I am using Python and the pywikipediabot API.

I am also familiar with the wikitools API. So instead of pywikipedia if someone has solution related to the wikitools API, please mention that as well.

Answer 1

Another great MediaWiki parser is mwparserfromhell.

In [1]: import mwparserfromhell

In [2]: import pywikibot

In [3]: enwp = pywikibot.Site('en','wikipedia')

In [4]: page = pywikibot.Page(enwp, 'Waking Life')            

In [5]: wikitext = page.get()               

In [6]: wikicode = mwparserfromhell.parse(wikitext)

In [7]: templates = wikicode.filter_templates()

In [8]: templates?
Type:       list
String Form:[u'{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2012}}', u"{{Infobox film\n| name           = Waking Life\n| im <...> critic film|waking-life|Waking Life}}', u'{{Richard Linklater}}', u'{{DEFAULTSORT:Waking Life}}']
Length:     31
Docstring:
list() -> new empty list
list(iterable) -> new list initialized from iterable's items

In [10]: templates[:2]
Out[10]: 
[u'{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2012}}',
 u"{{Infobox film\n| name           = Waking Life\n| image          = Waking-Life-Poster.jpg\n| image_size     = 220px\n| alt            =\n| caption        = Theatrical release poster\n| director       = [[Richard Linklater]]\n| producer       = [[Tommy Pallotta]]<br />[[Jonah Smith]]<br />Anne Walker-McBay<br />Palmer West\n| writer         = Richard Linklater\n| starring       = [[Wiley Wiggins]]\n| music          = Glover Gill\n| cinematography = Richard Linklater<br />[[Tommy Pallotta]]\n| editing        = Sandra Adair\n| studio         = [[Thousand Words]]\n| distributor    = [[Fox Searchlight Pictures]]\n| released       = {{Film date|2001|01|23|[[Sundance Film Festival|Sundance]]|2001|10|19|United States}}\n| runtime        = 101 minutes<!--Theatrical runtime: 100:40--><ref>{{cite web |title=''WAKING LIFE'' (15) |url=http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/waking-life-2002-3|work=[[British Board of Film Classification]]|date=September 19, 2001|accessdate=May 6, 2013}}</ref>\n| country        = United States\n| language       = English\n| budget         =\n| gross          = $3,176,880<ref>{{cite web|title=''Waking Life'' (2001)|work=[[Box Office Mojo]] |url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wakinglife.htm|accessdate=March 20, 2010}}</ref>\n}}"]

In [11]: infobox_film = templates[1]

In [12]: for param in infobox_film.params:
             print param.name, param.value

 name             Waking Life

 image            Waking-Life-Poster.jpg

 image_size       220px

 alt             

 caption          Theatrical release poster

 director         [[Richard Linklater]]

 producer         [[Tommy Pallotta]]<br />[[Jonah Smith]]<br />Anne Walker-McBay<br />Palmer West

 writer           Richard Linklater

 starring         [[Wiley Wiggins]]

 music            Glover Gill

 cinematography   Richard Linklater<br />[[Tommy Pallotta]]

 editing          Sandra Adair

 studio           [[Thousand Words]]

 distributor      [[Fox Searchlight Pictures]]

 released         {{Film date|2001|01|23|[[Sundance Film Festival|Sundance]]|2001|10|19|United States}}

 runtime          101 minutes<!--Theatrical runtime: 100:40--><ref>{{cite web |title=''WAKING LIFE'' (15) |url=http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/waking-life-2002-3|work=[[British Board of Film Classification]]|date=September 19, 2001|accessdate=May 6, 2013}}</ref>

 country          United States

 language         English

 budget          

 gross            $3,176,880<ref>{{cite web|title=''Waking Life'' (2001)|work=[[Box Office Mojo]] |url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wakinglife.htm|accessdate=March 20, 2010}}</ref>

Don't forget that params are mwparserfromhell objects too!

Answer 2

Instead of reinventing the wheel, check out DBPedia, which has already extracted all Wikipedia infoboxes into an easily parsable database format.