christopher.down wrote:

I should mention that the reason that this is particularly difficult is because the ability to nest templates probably requires a CFG to properly parse them without this. It would be much easier just to be able to get this from the API.

[ Confirming bug: valid feature request. ]

The api allows you to get the (xml) parsetree of the parser with

• action=parse&prop=wikitext&generatexml=
• action=expandtemplates
• prop=revisions&rvprop=content&generatexml=

christopher.down wrote:

(In reply to comment #3)

The api allows you to get the (xml) parsetree of the parser with

• action=parse&prop=wikitext&generatexml=
• action=expandtemplates
• prop=revisions&rvprop=content&generatexml=

Doesn't seem to work for me. I just get "Unrecognized value for parameter 'prop': revisions".

prop is part of action=query and it was rvgeneratexml= (my comment should only be a hint to the doc http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php), but see the query for the parse tree:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=Main%20Page&
prop=revisions&rvprop=content&rvgeneratexml=

You can also use Special:ExpandTemplates (has to check a option) to see the parse tree, maybe that is human readable and easy to understand the parse tree for various input.

christopher.down wrote:

I'm not seeing how having the XML parse tree helps this situation, unless I'm missing something. Even with Special:ExpandTemplates and the example that I gave, there would be no indication of the content of the arguments being passed.

In case I am not being clear enough about what I am requesting, the sort of exchange I'm looking for would be something like this:

Input:

...&title=Foo

The content on page Foo is the following:

xxx{{wibble|bar|baz=qux}}yyy{{a|b|c=d}}

Output:

<template title="wibble">
    <arg id=1>bar</arg>
    <arg title="baz">qux</arg>
</template>
<template title="a">
    <arg id=1>b</arg>
    <arg title="c">d</arg>
</template>

Yes, that is not so easy to use, but it contains the information:

Parse tree: (pretty printed by me)

<root>
xxx
<template>

<title>wibble</title>
<part><name index="1"/><value>bar</value></part>
<part><name>baz</name>=<value>qux</value></part>

</template>
yyy
<template>

<title>a</title>
<part><name index="1"/><value>b</value></part>
<part><name>c</name>=<value>d</value></part>

</template>
</root>

You have the name and the values of the template.
Only as alternative.