Re: Get a configuration variable at runtime

Hey Igal,
I'm not sure if this is a helpful answer, as I don't quite understand how
"slow" the solution might be to be acceptable for you.
It seems that meta=siteinfo API might be of use (
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Siteinfo)
With "general" option (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Siteinfo#General)
it seems to include a potentially relevant field in the API response: "rtl:
This will be emitted if the wiki's language reads right-to-left"
If I understand correctly it is a standard Mediawiki API (not registered by
an extension) so you might be able to call it for each wiki in a wiki farm.

Compare for example the response for
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=general
vs
https://he.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=general

hope this helps.
cheers



‪On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 at 08:12, ‫יגאל חיטרון‬‎ <[email protected]>
wrote:‬

> The answer to both of you. The extension GlobalWatchlist needs to know for
> every wikisite in a wikifarm, if it's LTR or RTL. This is because the
> Special Page shows many sections, each from different wiki, on this wiki's
> language. So, we need a function, that gets 'en.wikipedia.org' as a
> parameter and returns 'ltr'. For now, there is a hardcoded list of rtl
> language codes there, as regex, which for my sake is worse that using API,
> just IMHO. It was always a bad solution, but when I implemented it years
> ago, we didn't know other choice. Now I'm aware of the SiteMatrix
> extension, which evaluates this mapping on runtime, and I can use the API
> call to retrieve the relevant information. I looked a lot for a way to
> avoid it. I think I found a way to get a direction from the language code,
> but I still can't get the language code from the URL. I can guess it from '
> en.wikipedia.org', but not from 'commons.wikimedia.org', and not from '
> abcdefgh.catalyst.wmcloud.org'. So, as for now, I don't see another way
> except for the API call.
> Igal
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T412505
>
>
> בתאריך יום ה׳, 18 בדצמ׳ 2025, 00:30, מאת John ‏<[email protected]
> >:
>
>> One of the rules I’ve always used when proving support is don’t tell me
>> how you want to do something. Tell me the goal, and we can get a solution.
>> The method you are trying to use may or may not be optimal.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 5:13 PM Brian Wolff <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Generally speaking, calling the action api externally is strongly
>>> discouraged. Typically there is a backend function that is prefered instead.
>>>
>>> Whether that is actually true in your case depends on what you are
>>> doing. Whether or not your case would be an acceptable exception to the
>>> general rule would depend on the specifics of what you are doing and if
>>> there really is no other reasonable option.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Brian/bawolff
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wednesday, 17 December 2025, יגאל חיטרון <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well, I started to think, after reading a lot of documentation and a
>>>> lot of gerrit code, that my previous knowledge was wrong, and I have no
>>>> choice but calling API from inside Mediawiki php, despite the words in
>>>> Mediawiki developers guide "If you use an API call in Mediawiki php code,
>>>> you're doing something wrong." Looks like I have no other choice. If nobody
>>>> here says I can't do this, I'll start to write. Thank you.
>>>> Igal
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>> ‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 17 בדצמ׳ 2025 ב-19:21 מאת יגאל חיטרון <‪
>>>> [email protected]‬‏>:‬
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks, but I'm not so sure. I already saw this line. The API returns
>>>>> something with more than 10000 lines.
>>>>> https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=sitematrix&format=json&smsiteprop=url%7Cdbname%7Ccode%7Csitename%7Clang&formatversion=2.
>>>>> I wanted just to call the API from PHP, until read in developers guide "If
>>>>> you call API you're doing something wrong".
>>>>> Igal
>>>>>
>>>>> בתאריך יום ד׳, 17 בדצמ׳ 2025, 19:16, מאת Brian Wolff ‏<
>>>>> [email protected]>:
>>>>>
>>>>>> It should be defined at
>>>>>> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/operations/mediawiki-config/+/df0f99e231a682f63f82e4b4a00ecce52bd22ed9/wmf-config/CommonSettings.php#1324
>>>>>> . As far as i can tell its not set dynamiclly so should have the same value
>>>>>> at all wikimedia wikis.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Bawolff
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wednesday, 17 December 2025, יגאל חיטרון <[email protected]>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've made a Gerrit change for a Phabricator task that uses the
>>>>>>> $wgSiteMatrixSites variable, which is created at runtime. How can I view
>>>>>>> its value on Meta?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The issue is that this variable seems to have a different structure
>>>>>>> on each site, depending on the available data. I’ve written traversal code
>>>>>>> designed to handle any possible structure, but I can’t confirm if it works
>>>>>>> correctly for Meta.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If I could get the Meta value—or even just the first few pages—it
>>>>>>> would be very helpful.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thank you in advance.
>>>>>>> Igal (User:Ikhitron)
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>
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