Extract paragraphs from Wikipedia API using PHP cURL

Question

Here I am trying to use the Wikipedia API (MediaWiki) - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php

• Get a GET at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=xml&action=opensearch&search=[keyword] to get a list of suggested pages for the keyword

• Scroll through each suggested page using GET at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&export&titles=[page title]

• Extract all paragraphs found on the page to an array

• Do something with an array

I'm stuck on # 3. I see a bunch of JSON data that includes "\ n \ n" between paragraphs, but for some reason the PHP explode () function is not working.

Essentially, I just want to grab the “meat” of every Wikipedia page (not the headings or any formatting, just the content) and break it into paragraphs into an array.

Any ideas? Thank!

Answer 1

\n\n- these are literally these characters, not line breaks. Make sure you use single quotes around the string in explode:

$parts = explode('\n\n', $text);

If you decide to use double quotes, you will have to avoid characters \, for example:

$parts = explode("\\n\\n", $text);

On the other hand: why do you extract data in two different formats? Why not just go to JSON or just XML?