Whiffle - a Python wrapper class around the API

Summary:

Makes things simpler and safer

Whiffle - a Python wrapper class around the API

rurwin 05 Sep 2010 13:57

I've just release version 0.1.0 of Whiffle on the PyPi repository: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Whiffle

Firstly, Whiffle hides all the complexity of setting up the XML-RPC serverproxy, but still allows you to make calls on the API transparently.

Secondly, Whiffle has extra methods to simplify operations on pages, and especially adding and removing tags. It does validation on page names and ensures you don't create blank pages by accident.

Thirdly, Whiffle has "example code" in the form of two full applications for changing page information on a large scale. "chparent" changes the parents of any number of pages, and "addtag" adds or removes tags from any number of pages.

Hello World with Whiffle

from whiffle import wikidotapi
 
api = wikidotapi.connection()
api.set_page_item("hello", "source", "**Hello World!**", create=True)

That's the whole program to create a page called hello that contains the text "Hello World!" in bold.

Re: Whiffle - a Python wrapper class around the API

leiger 06 Sep 2010 03:54

Nice and simple.

I was working on a similar thing with my Java library, hiding a lot of the complexity. I even went so far as to start adding methods like addTag(String) and removeTag(String) for pages… where it would get the current list of tags, make a modification, then re-update the page with the new tags.

All of these types of features are useful for the programmers that use the library… but it means you're retrieving and then re-saving an entire page just to modify a single tag. So it's not very efficient.

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Re: Whiffle - a Python wrapper class around the API

rurwin 06 Sep 2010 10:06

Whiffle caches the Site.Pages list and uses that to check if pages exist and what their tags are. So I don't have to fetch the page every time. You don't have to save the entire page; all the parameters are optional. You can save the tags on an existing page without having to supply source, parent etc.

Although so far as I can see, every XML-RPC call takes something over a second, no matter what it is.

Re: Whiffle - a Python wrapper class around the API

rurwin 28 Sep 2010 00:03

Whiffle is now at version 1.0, which uses the Wikidot API v2.

Re: Whiffle - a Python wrapper class around the API

Helmut_pdorf 23 Jan 2012 09:16

Hi Richard,

I have a problem with whiffle and "Python 3.2.2"…

I think - you have used the rel 2 ?

D:\Data\Python32\Whiffle-1.0>d:\data\python32\python
Python 3.2.2 (default, Sep 4 2011, 09:51:08) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win
32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from whiffle import wikidotapi
File "<stdin>", line 1
from whiffle import wikidotapi
^
IndentationError: unexpected indent
>>> from whiffle import wikidotapi
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "whiffle\wikidotapi.py", line 154
if Debug: print "fetching metadata for ",p
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>>>>>

I am trying the wish in the community:
http://community.wikidot.com/forum/t-435685/help-creating-3-000-pages#post-1356898

and await the next problem with 2 lines input for the "source"…

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Last edited on 23 Jan 2012 11:40 by Helmut_pdorf Show more

Re: Whiffle - a Python wrapper class around the API

rurwin 25 Jan 2012 12:43

Yes, Whiffle is Python 2 only.
The problem you found is because in Python 3, print is a function not a statement.

This should work:

if Debug: print ("fetching metadata for ",p)

But you would have to fix every print statement, and I don't know what other problems you may come across.