MediaWiki:Api-help-datatypes

Input to MediaWiki should be NFC-normalized UTF-8. MediaWiki may attempt to convert other input, but this may cause some operations (such as edits with MD5 checks) to fail.

Some parameter types in API requests need further explanation:

boolean

Boolean parameters work like HTML checkboxes: if the parameter is specified, regardless of value, it is considered true. For a false value, omit the parameter entirely.

timestamp

Timestamps may be specified in several formats. ISO 8601 date and time is recommended. All times are in UTC, any included timezone is ignored.

• ISO 8601 date and time, 2001-01-15T14:56:00Z (punctuation and Z are optional)
• ISO 8601 date and time with (ignored) fractional seconds, 2001-01-15T14:56:00.00001Z (dashes, colons, and Z are optional)
• MediaWiki format, 20010115145600
• Generic numeric format, 2001-01-15 14:56:00 (optional timezone of GMT, +##, or -## is ignored)
• EXIF format, 2001:01:15 14:56:00
• RFC 2822 format (timezone may be omitted), Mon, 15 Jan 2001 14:56:00
• RFC 850 format (timezone may be omitted), Monday, 15-Jan-2001 14:56:00
• C ctime format, Mon Jan 15 14:56:00 2001
• Seconds since 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z as a 1 to 13 digit integer (excluding 0)
• The string now

alternative multiple-value separator

Parameters that take multiple values are normally submitted with the values separated using the pipe character, e.g. param=value1|value2 or param=value1%7Cvalue2. If a value must contain the pipe character, use U+001F (Unit Separator) as the separator and prefix the value with U+001F, e.g. param=%1Fvalue1%1Fvalue2.