WikiDB/Tutorial

Step 1 - Defining Data

Suppose you have a standard infobox, say Template:Infobox company. You use it in a page by entering the following syntax:

Microsoft

Year founded: 1492
Annual Revenue: $8

Which gives the following result:

Microsoft

Year founded: 1492
Annual Revenue: $8

In order to add this table to a database, you simply replace the above syntax with the following:

<data table="Companies" template="Infobox company">
name=Microsoft
founded=1492
revenue=$8
</data>

This generates exactly the same output:

Microsoft

Year founded: 1492
Annual Revenue: $8

...BUT it also adds data to the Companies table. There is no definition for this table yet, but the data is there!

Data can be defined on any page in the wiki, and more than one row of data can be defined in a page. You get to group data with content, and still have it displayed in a standard format within the page.

You can omit the template parameter altogether, and the data will be hidden, or you can use the special name "default" to display the data in a standard format, as follows:

name	founded	revenue
Apple	1984	$7.42

Now, take a look at Table:Companies and you can see the above data in tabular form.

Step 2 - Defining A Table

Now we are going to try setting up a table definition, using the following data:

Company name	Logo	Founded	Location	Revenue	Annual revenue
Microsof		1492	Seattle		$8

Company name	Logo	Founded	Location	Revenue
Apple	File:Apple logo.png	April 2005		$7.42

Company name	Logo	Founded	Location	Revenue	Name
	File:Intel logo.jpg	USA			Intel

Take a look at the definition at Table:Companies2. You can see that the defined fields and undefined fields are separated out, and that data is modified according to the field definitions. This does not affect the data on this page, but it does affect how it is displayed within the wiki. Changing the table definition has immediate effect though, in the standard wiki way this can be, and of course can always be reverted if there are problems.

Step 3 - Fixing errors

In the above example, you may have noticed that there were two fields 'Name' and 'Annual revenue' which should have been 'Company name' and 'Revenue' respectively. In this case you can either go and fix each record, or define aliases for the incorrectly named fields.

I have defined the same data for Table:Companies3, which has aliases in place. Take a look and see what a difference it makes.