New subject: [Semediawiki-user] maintenance script to perform "null edit" to all pages.

23 Oct 2018

I should clarify --- I'm creating a calculated Boolean property called "is
expired" and using a date calculation in the template to set it to true or false.
This is ultimately what I want updated every night. Then those pages that are newly
calculated as "is expired=true" can be made to go into a Category called
"Expired Items" that users can then "watch" using the extension
"CategoryWatch", thus generating email notifications.

Does that make sense?

Is there a maintenance script that would perform a "null-edit" of every page (or
all pages in a category)?

-Rich

-----Original Message-----
From: Evans, Richard K. (GRC-H000) 
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2018 2:36 PM
To: mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org; semediawiki-user(a)lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: API call to purge all pages in a specific category

Folks, 

Quick MW 1.30 question regarding remote refreshing of pages needed by a SMW application. 

Can someone tell me how to write an API call that Purges all pages in a specific
category?

Background --- I have a semantic "Class" (a Form, Template, and Category set of
pages that work together) called "MyTasks" that produces task tracking pages
with a few date fields including one called "Property:has date needed by" (of
type date)---  Within "Template:MyTasks", I have manually added an additional
semantic property that is not used by the Form. It is called "Property:has days till
due" (of type number). Also within the template I calculate the difference in the
number of days between the current system time of the client where the page is being
viewed and the "has date needed by" provided previously by the form. The goal is
to be able to write a semantic query that show all tasks that are due in less than 10
days. For example: {{#ask:[[Category:MyTasks]][[has days till due::<10]]|format=ol}}

The problem is ---- I need to refresh the wiki pages in Category:MyTasks every night so
that the "has days till due" value gets updated each day.

My thought is to have an API call that purge all files in a given category I can add that
to a cURL command in a PHP file on the server that I can call nightly from a cron job.

Thanks!
-Rich