Help:Inline queries/Exporting query results: RSS, etc.

Subpages of the main Help page: * 5 /Exporting query results: RSS, etc. * 6 /Using templates for custom formatting
 * 1 /Introduction to "hash"ask
 * 2 /The "hash"show parser function
 * 3 /Standard parameters for inline queries
 * 3.1 /Result limits and links to further results
 * 3.2 /Introduction and default text
 * 3.3 /Sorting results
 * 3.4 /Configuring labels or table headers
 * 3.5 /Changing the first result column
 * 4 /Result formats

Some of the above formats especially Semantic Result Formats enable data export from the wiki. Since Semantic MediaWiki release 1.4.2 the iCalender format and vCard format is part of the Semantic Result Formats. Two aspects of those formats are special:


 * 1) They do not show any results at the place where they are inserted.
 * 2) They use fixed standard formats for exporting (non-fixed, free-form) wiki content. Hence it must be explained which wiki properties belong to which part of the data export format.

The first point means that only a link to Special:Ask will be shown at the place where the query is inserted. This link is similar to the normal «further results» link, but will use a more adequate default text (something like «RSS»). Yet it is possible to change the link text with the parameter searchlabel as for other queries.

The second point makes it necessary to relate printout statements (properties) to the data fields available in the export format. For example, vCard is a data format that can encode many kinds of contact data about a person, but it cannot represent arbitrary properties. To specify which wiki properties belong to which of the available data fields, the label of the property printout is used. For example, vCard supports (among many others) the data fields «firstname», «lastname» and «homepage». A query could thus be

Here the wiki would have properties called «firstname» and «lastname», but the homepage of a person is stored in a property called «url». The label «homepage» is given to the latter so that vCard recognises the special meaning of this property. With this method, wikis can use arbitrary property names (in any language) and still export to standard formats. See the pages of the above formats for details on the data fields they support.