Editing WikiDB/Installation

This page describes how to install WikiDB.  If you already have WikiDB installed and need to upgrade to a later version, see [[WikiDB/Upgrading]] instead.  

== Requirements ==

* '''MediaWiki 1.16 or above'''
** Users of older MediaWiki versions can still use [[WikiDB/Legacy versions|an older version of WikiDB]], but this is unsupported.
* WikiDB supports the following database back-ends:
** '''MySQL''' - Full support, well tested.
** '''SQLite''' - Full support, not yet well tested.  Please report any problems (or successes!) via the [[WikiDB/Bugs|bugs]] page.
** '''PostgreSQL''' - Full support, not yet well tested.  Please report any problems (or successes!) via the [[WikiDB/Bugs|bugs]] page.
* '''Shell access''' is required for the command-line setup scripts.  You can avoid this for a while by [[../Tables|manually creating the DB tables]] but it will probably not be possible to upgrade to later versions without being able to run these scripts.

The following instructions assume that you have already installed MediaWiki and that your wiki is fully-functional.

== Step 1: Download and install the code ==

You can download the latest version of WikiDB as a zipped archive.  

: <span style="font-size: 1.2em;">'''[[Media:WikiDB.zip|Download WikiDB Here!]]'''<br>or visit the [[:Image:WikiDB.zip|file description page]] for a bit more information (e.g. version details, etc).</span>

You need to extract the file into your extensions directory, which should create a <code>WikiDB</code> folder containing some sub-folders and the main startup script.  The path to this folder should be '''<code><span style="color: #999999;">/path/to/mediawiki</span>/extensions/WikiDB/</code>'''.

If you need to install it to a different location, you will need to adjust the path when you add the <code>require_once()</code> line, below, to LocalSettings.php, and you will probably need to set the <code>MW_INSTALL_PATH</code> environment variable in order to run the command-line maintenance scripts, but otherwise this should not cause any problems.

== Step 2: Modify LocalSettings.php ==

Once the files are in place, you need to modify <code>[[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php|LocalSettings.php]]</code> (which is where all wiki configuration settings are stored) in order to load and configure the extension.

=== Load the extension ===

To use the extension, you first need to load it.  To do this, you simply need to add the following line to <code>LocalSettings.php</code>:

<php>require_once("extensions/WikiDB/WikiDB.php");</php>

You can check that the extension is loaded properly by visiting the <code>Special:Version</code> page on your wiki, where it should be listed along with the correct version number.

=== Define table namespaces ===

In order for the extension to have any worthwhile effect, you need to define one or more table namespaces.  Table namespaces are where your table definitions are stored, and have special properties which are different to other namespaces within the wiki (for more about the concept of namespaces see [[mw:Manual:Namespaces|this article at MediaWiki.org]]).  In most situations only a single table namespace is required, though it is possible to define several.

To set up a table namespace, you need to first create the namespaces by adding it to <code>[[mw:Manual:$wgExtraNamespaces|$wgExtraNamespaces]]</code>, so that MediaWiki knows about it (including its associated 'talk' namespace) and then you need to add it to the <code>$wgWikiDBNamespaces</code> array so that WikiDB knows to treat it as special.

For example, here's what you need to add to <code>LocalSettings.php</code> in order to create a single table namespace called <code>Table</code>:

<php>
$wgExtraNamespaces = array(
	100 => "Table", 
	101 => "Table_Talk",
);

$wgWikiDBNamespaces = 100;
</php>

For more information, including how to set up multiple table namespaces, see the documentation for [[WikiDB/Configuration settings#$wgWikiDBNamespaces|$wgWikiDBNamespaces]] on the Configuration page.

=== Further configuration ===

See [[WikiDB/Configuration settings]] for further (optional) configuration options.

== Step 3: Set up the database ==

WikiDB has an automated script to set up the database ready for use.  The requirements for running the WikiDB maintenance scripts is the same as those for the standard MediaWiki maintenance scripts, i.e. you need command-line access and appropriate permissions to modify the DB schema.  For more details about this see [[mw:Manual:Maintenance scripts]].

To setup the database tables, you need to run the SetupTables script:

<bash>
$ cd /path/to/mediawiki/extensions/WikiDB/maintenance
$ php SetupTables.php
</bash>

For completeness, and to be absolutely sure that existing pages are parsed correctly for WikiDB data, you should also run the RebuildWikiDB script.  On a large wiki, this can be very slow as it involves re-parsing all pages on the wiki.  It is also relatively unlikely that existing pages contain DB data if WikiDB has not already been installed, therefore you may choose to skip this step.  However, it is recommended that you run it in all cases, to make absolutely sure that WikiDB is up-to-date.

<bash>
$ php RebuildWikiDB.php
</bash>

For further details about the various command-line scripts provided by WikiDB, see [[WikiDB/Maintenance scripts]].

== Troubleshooting ==

=== I am getting PHP 'Strict Standards' errors (E_STRICT) ===

This has been fixed as of [[WikiDB/CHANGELOG#r844|v3, r844]].  Please upgrade WikiDB.

=== My DB user doesn't have CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES permission ===

This has been fixed as of [[WikiDB/CHANGELOG#r661|v3, r661]].  Please upgrade WikiDB.