how can i get data from mediwiki

Question

Hi I am using following api to get the data from mediawiki. When I copy this url and paste it into a browser, an xml response appears. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&titles=API|Main_Page&rvprop=timestamp|user|comment|content

but when I try to do with curl it gives me the error "Scripts should use an informative User-Agent string with contact information, or they may be IP-blocked without notice. ".

I am using following code for this. Can any one trace my error?

$url='http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&titles=API|Main_Page&rvprop=timestamp|user|comment|content';
$curl = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url); 
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        //curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 1); 
        $objResponse = curl_exec($curl);
        curl_close($curl);

        echo $objResponse;die;

Answer 1

this will work to bypass there referrer user agent checks:

    <?php


    function getwiki($url="", $referer="", $userAgent="") {
        if($url==""||$referer==""||$userAgent=="") { return false;};
        $headers[] = 'Accept: image/gif, image/x-bitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg';
        $headers[] = 'Connection: Keep-Alive';
        $headers[] = 'Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8';
        $user_agent = $userAgent;
        $process = curl_init($url);
        curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
        curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
        curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent);
        curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_REFERER, $referer);
        curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
        curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
        $return = curl_exec($process);
        curl_close($process);
        return $return;
    }

    //edited to include Adam Backstrom's sound advice
    echo getwiki('http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&titles=API|Main_Page&rvprop=timestamp|user|comment|content', 'http://en.wikipedia.org/', 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YourCoolBot/1.0; +http://yoursite.com/botinfo)');

    ?>

Answer 2

From the MediaWiki API:Quick start guide:

Pass a User-Agent header that properly identifies your client: don't use the default User-Agent from your client library, but use a custom one including the name of your client and the version number, something like MyCuteBot/0.1.

On Wikimedia wikis, failing to supply a User-Agent header or supplying an empty or generic one will cause the request to fail with an HTTP 403 error. See meta:User-Agent policy. Other MediaWiki wikis may have similar policies.

From meta:User-Agent policy:

If you run a bot, please send a User-Agent header identifying the bot and supplying some way of contacting you, e.g.: User-Agent: MyCoolTool (+http://example.com/MyCoolToolPage/)