DotNetWikiBot Framework

Framework classes documentation is now available online.
Very comprehensive DotNetWikiBot usage examples can now be found in unit testing script.

Purpose

DotNetWikiBot Framework is designed to help with many complicated and routine tasks of wiki site development and maintenance. DotNetWikiBot Framework is a full-featured client API, that allows you to build programs and web robots easily to manage information on MediaWiki-powered sites. DotNetWikiBot Framework is also good for learning C# and .NET.

Some facts about DotNetWikiBot Framework

• DotNetWikiBot Framework is an easy-to-learn and easy-to-use library (API) for programming client applications and web robots, that could help in construction and maintenance of wiki sites.
• DotNetWikiBot is compiled as a .NET dynamic link library (.dll file), that could be used directly or in other products.
• DotNetWikiBot is written in C#, it's based on Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5 and targets sites running MediaWiki software.
• Using Mono framework, DotNetWikiBot can work under Linux, Unix, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and iPhone OS as well as under Windows.
• Any .NET language can be used to access DotNetWikiBot library functions, including Visual Basic, Managed C++, JScript, J# and F#. Only minimal programming skills are required to make bots with DotNetWikiBot Framework, it allows to build bots in fast and simple manner.
• DotNetWikiBot source code is located in a single .cs file, which could be easily changed and recompiled to suite your needs. It requires only C# compiler, no other tools.
• DotNetWikiBot Framework is good for educational purposes. It's source code is written in a plain classic manner, allowing to learn object-oriented programming, .NET features, LINQ, web robots making, regular expressions and advanced XML parsing in a short time.
• DotNetWikiBot doesn't require installation. It is downloaded in a single small .zip file along with compiled documentation, source codes, command-line scripts for compilation, sample GUI Utility for batch upload of files to wiki sites and ready-to-use sample bot script.
• DotNetWikiBot is free.

Short tutorial

There are only 3 types of objects in DotNetWikiBot Framework: Site, Page and PageList. They are used as follows.

using DotNetWikiBot;	// Reference DotNetWikiBot namespace for easy access

class MyBot : Bot	// Derive your bot class from framework's Bot class
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        // Firstly make Site object, specifying site's URL and your bot account
        Site enWiki = new Site("http://en.wikipedia.org", "myBotLogin", "myPassword");
        // Then make Page object, specifying site and page title in constructor
        Page p = new Page(enWiki, "Art");
        // Load actual page text from live wiki
        p.Load();
        // Add "Visual arts" category link to "Art" page's text
        p.AddToCategory("Visual arts");
        // Save "Art" article's text back to live wiki with specified comment
        p.Save("comment: category link added", true);

        // Make empty PageList object, representing collection of pages
        PageList pl = new PageList(enWiki);
        // Fill it with 100 pages, where "nuclear disintegration" is mentioned
        pl.FillFromGoogleSearchResults("nuclear disintegration", 100);
        // Load texts and metadata of all found pages from live wiki
        pl.LoadWithMetadata();
        // Now suppose, that we must correct some typical mistake in all our pages
        foreach (Page i in pl)
            // In each page we will replace one phrase with another
            i.text = i.text.Replace("fusion products", "fission products");
        // Finally we'll save all changed pages to wiki with 5 seconds interval			
        pl.SaveSmoothly(5, "comment: mistake autocorrection", true);

        // Now clear our PageList so we could re-use it
        pl.Clear();
        // Fill it with all articles in "Astronomy" category and it's subcategories
        pl.FillFromCategoryTree("Astronomy");
        // Download and save all PageList's articles to specified local XML file
        pl.SaveXmlDumpToFile("Dumps\\ArticlesAboutAstronomy.xml");		
    }
}