How to get table data from Wikipedia page?

Question

Is there somebody who knows how to use the Wikipedia API to get JSON or XML data out from a table on a specific Wikipedia page?

Is there maybe a different way to do this?

For example from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_action_films_of_the_2010s

Answer 1

You can use curl (or use any other method/tool) to retrieve and/or parse a Wikipedia-URL via the public API. Here are two examples that should help you:

Retrieval of List_of_action_films_of_the_2010s:

• JSON unparsed via the query action
• JSON parsed via the parse action

Next, you would need to parse for and/or select the sub-elements relevant for your analysis. In this case I would assume: wikitable elements.

For reference and a detailed explanation, you can have a look at the general API page of MediaWiki and at the list of parameters on how to use the API to parse Wikipedia pages for certain data elements.