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.