Wikipedia API not searching specified term

Question

I’m using the Wikipedia API wrapper for Python, and for some queries, it’s not searching the term I specified. For example, when I execute the function below:

import Wikipedia
wikipedia.summary('machine learning')

I get the error

PageError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[28], line 1
----> 1 wikipedia.summary('machine learning')

File /data/123/anaconda3/envs/comet/lib/python3.8/site-packages/wikipedia/util.py:28, in cache.__call__(self, *args, **kwargs)
     26   ret = self._cache[key]
     27 else:
---> 28   ret = self._cache[key] = self.fn(*args, **kwargs)
     30 return ret

File /data/123/anaconda3/envs/comet/lib/python3.8/site-packages/wikipedia/wikipedia.py:231, in summary(title, sentences, chars, auto_suggest, redirect)
    216 '''
    217 Plain text summary of the page.
    218 
   (...)
    226 * redirect - allow redirection without raising RedirectError
    227 '''
    229 # use auto_suggest and redirect to get the correct article
    230 # also, use page's error checking to raise DisambiguationError if necessary
--> 231 page_info = page(title, auto_suggest=auto_suggest, redirect=redirect)
    232 title = page_info.title
    233 pageid = page_info.pageid

File /data/123/anaconda3/envs/comet/lib/python3.8/site-packages/wikipedia/wikipedia.py:276, in page(title, pageid, auto_suggest, redirect, preload)
...
--> 345     raise PageError(self.title)
    346   else:
    347     raise PageError(pageid=self.pageid)

PageError: Page id "machine ;earning" does not match any pages. Try another id!

Does anyone know why this happens?

Asked By: mehsheenman

||

Source

Answer 1

The module seems to be broken: https://github.com/goldsmith/Wikipedia/issues/279, namely this line in the source code:

title = suggestion or results[0]

It prioritises suggestions over actual result, so it may fail depending on whatever suggestion contains.

Turn of autosuggestions with auto_suggest = False parameter to prevent this.

import wikipedia
print(wikipedia.summary('machine learning', auto_suggest = False))

Answered By: matszwecja

Answer 2

If you want to use auto suggest, it works if you don’t use spaces

import wikipedia

wikipedia.summary("machinelearning")

Probably some bug in the package.

Answered By: Henrique Andrade

Wikipedia API not searching specified term

Question:

Answers: