The current documentation for pywikibot.Site.logevents() is ambiguous about how the start, end, and reverse parameters work.
According to the MediaWiki API:Logevents documentation:
- start : “The timestamp to start enumerating from.”
- end : “The timestamp to stop enumerating at.”
- reverse : “List oldest first. Note that the meaning of the 'start' and 'end' parameters is reversed when this is enabled.”
However, Pywikibot’s current docstring implies that start and end act like “after” and “before,” which can lead to confusion when users iterate through logs or check block events.
Solution
This task proposes updating the docstring to match the MediaWiki API wording exactly.
Proposed docstring update:
start : Timestamp, optional
The timestamp to start enumerating from.
end : Timestamp, optional
The timestamp to end enumerating at.
reverse : bool, optional
If True, list oldest first and reverse the meaning of 'start' and 'end'.Example code for testing parameters
import pywikibot
from datetime import datetime
site = pywikibot.Site('en', 'wikipedia')
start = datetime(2025, 9, 10, 12, 0, 0 )
end = datetime(2025, 9, 12, 12, 0, 0 )
reverse = True
for entry in site.logevents(start=start, end=end, total=50, reverse=reverse):
print(f"{entry.timestamp()}: {entry.type()} - {entry.action()}")Documentation
- Manual:Pywikibot/Gerrit - For_developers
- Gerrit : Commit message guidelines
- T407059 Pywikibot contribution howto ( our documentation notes ticket )