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Read operations

The following documentation assumes that the Wikibase instance we work with is Wikidata (using the wd command, which is just an alias of the wb command bound to Wikidata config), unless specified otherwise (using the wb command and custom instance host (-i) and SPARQL endpoint (-e).

Summary

wb summary

wb summary Q1

Working with Wikibase, we often end up with obscure ids. We can always look-up those ids labels on the website but that means loading pages and pages, when a small API call and parsing could return just what we need: a label, a description, and some claims to know what we are dealing with.

wb summary <entities ids>
# Alias:
wb u <entities ids>
wd summary Q27477672
# Can take multiple ids from all the supported entity types: item, lexeme, property
wd summary Q18120925 L525 P123

# With custom properties on an other Wikibase instance
wb summary Q5 -l en -p P2,P12 -i https://wikibase.world -e https://wikibase.world/query/sparql

Options:

  • -p, --properties <properties>: override default summary properties (separated by a comma)
  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify the summary's language
  • -v, --verbose: log all claims

wb search

wb search <query>
# Alias: (the s was already used by 'wb summary', so 'f' as 'find')
wb f <query>
wd search Ligo
# Q255371    Laser — Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory gravitational-wave detector
# Q18461808  Ligo — Italian town
# Q36946800  Ligo — family name
# Q30026643  Ligonchio — chief town of the homonym municipality
# Q30026645  Ligosullo — chief town of the homonym municipality
# Q18494373  Ligone (Santa Maria)
# Q2520468   Ligonier
# Q70330     Ligornetto
# Q785105    Ligonier, Pennsylvania — borough of Pennsylvania
# Q1781427   Ligorio López — Mexican footballer

wb search eagle -i https://wikibase.world
# Q5         EAGLE Wikibase wikibase instance created for the Europeana Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy project

Options:

  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify the results labels and descriptions language
  • -t, --type <type>: set a custom type: i|item, p|property, l|lexeme, f|form, s|sense (Default: item)
  • -n, --limit <num>: set a custom limit (defaults to 20)
  • -j, --json: format the result as JSON
  • -v, --verbose: display rich results (aka summaries)
  • -p, --properties <comma separted properties ids>: request additional properties (implies verbose mode)
  • --cirrus: Use the Cirrus search rather than the default wbsearchentities search

Examples:

# Display search results with publication dates
wd search --properties P577 "Harry Potter"
# Search properties (but `wb props` might be doing a better job)
wd search --type property "date"
# Search lexemes
wd search --type lexeme "date"
# Search forms
wd search --type form "code"
# Searching senses doesn't seem to work currently (2020-04-17)
wd search --type sense "test"
# Use Cirrus search to find humans (Q5) matching "porte"
wd search --cirrus "porte haswbstatement:P31=Q5"

wb label

wb label <entities ids>
# Alias:
wb l <entities ids>
wd label Q1103345
# => The Cluetrain Manifesto
wd label Q18120925 Q22117436 Q22117437

wb label Q7 -i https://wikibase.world
# => PlantData

Options:

  • -c, --clipboard: copy the command's result to the clipboard
  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify the label's language
wb label Q1103345 -l de
# => Cluetrain-Manifest
wb label Q123 -l zh
# => 9月

NB: when no --lang is specified, the command will try to fallback on English, or whatever language value can be found

Alternatively, if you were wanting to get labels in a csv format, a combination of wb data and jq might suit you better:

echo Q12377508 Q193943 | wd data --props labels --simplify | jq -r '[.id, .labels.en // first(.labels[])] | @csv'

wb description

wb description <entities ids>
# Alias: (the d was already used by 'wb data')
wb desc <entities ids>
wb description Q1103345
wb description Q18120925 Q22117436 Q22117437

Options:

  • -c, --clipboard: copy the command's result to the clipboard
  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify the description's language

wb aliases

wb aliases <entities ids>
# Alias:
wb a <entities ids>
wb aliases Q1103345
wb aliases Q18120925 Q22117436 Q22117437

Options:

  • -c, --clipboard: copy the command's result to the clipboard
  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify the aliases's language

wb lemma

wb lemma <lexeme ids>
wb lemma L1
wd lemma L1 L2 L3

Options:

  • -c, --clipboard: copy the command's result to the clipboard
  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify the lemma's language

wb claims

A quick way to access the claims of an entity

wb claims <entities ids> [property id or pattern]
# Alias:
wb c <entities ids> [property id or pattern]
# all Q2001's claims
wd claims Q2001
# or just his place of birth
wd claims Q2001 P19
# or just the claims from properties of type Url
wd claims Q2001 Url
# or just the claims from properties with labels matching "library"
wd claims Q2001 library
# or website, etc
wd claims Q2001 website

# all https://wikibase.world/entity/Q7 claims
wb claims Q7 -i https://wikibase.world -e https://wikibase.world/query/sparql

Options:

  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify the properties labels' language
wd claims Q2001 --lang es
  • -a, --all: include all claims, not only the truthy ones
# one result: the claim with the preferred rank
wd claims Q858121 P2002
# several results: claims of all ranks
wd claims Q858121 P2002 --all

Options when passing both an id an property:

  • -c, --clipboard: copy the command's result to clipboard
  • -j, --json: format the result as JSON

get a claim GUID

If a property and a value are provided, wb claims returns the matching claims GUIDs

wd claims Q2013 P2689 1940 --json
# => [ "Q2013$2bcdb018-47a0-5175-eade-1dd6dea2b53d" ]

wb data

A quick way to access an entity's raw JSON data

wb data <entities ids>
# Alias:
wb d <entities ids>
wd data Q1496

This simply outputs the result of https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&format=json&ids=Q1496, parsed to keep only what is relevant to the requested entity (here Q1496). The output is valid json, so it lets you the possibility to pipe it to a JSON parser such as jq:

wd data Q1496 | jq .labels.pt
# => {"language":"pt","value":"Fernão de Magalhães"}

multiple entities

You can also request several entities at once by passing several ids. This outputs newline delimited JSON: one entity per-line, each line being valid JSON, but not the whole file as a whole.

wd data Q1 Q2 Q3 L57332 P2114
wb data Q5 Q6 Q7 -i https://wikibase.world

Alternatively, you can pass ids from stdin:

echo "Q1496 Q123" | wd data

This especially make sense when you have thousands of ids to pass, passing them as arguments would fail. See wb sparql all-instances example.

simplified entities

You can request entities to be simplified, using wikibase-sdk simplify.entity function

wd data --simplify Q515168
# pass options to the simplify function
wd data --simplify --keep ids,nontruthy,ranks Q123
keep

You can customize the output by passing the list of data elements to keep:

wd data --simplify --keep ids,richvalues,types,references,qualifiers,hashes,nontruthy,ranks,badges Q123
# equivalent to
wd data --simplify --keep all Q123
# Can be useful to easily access claims ids
wd d -sk ids Q123 | jq .claims.P138 -j

See simplify.claims options for behavior details

time-converter

Customize the format of time values

wd data --simplify --time-converter simple-day Q52#P571

Available values: iso, epoch, simple-day, none, see wikibase-sdk documentation on time parsers for behavior details

filtered properties

Only request properties you need among labels,descriptions,aliases,claims,sitelinks

wd data --props labels,claims,sitelinks Q515168
wd data --props lemmas,forms L525

Or even subparts of those properties

wd data --props labels.fr,claims.P18,claims.P580,sitelinks.dewiki Q515168

Which can be rewritten in a more lazy format (but being less specific, it actually also try to give you descriptions and aliases in French)

wd data --props fr,P18,P580,dewiki Q515168

fetch an old revision

wd data Q4115189 --revision 943703455

alternative formats

ttl

Entities can be requested in Turtle

wd data --format ttl Q123 Q3548931 Q515168
wb data --format ttl Q5 Q6 Q7 -i https://wikibase.world

Fetch many entities from a SPARQL request, using wb sparql:

wb sparql ./some_request_that_select_entities.rq > entities_ids
cat entities_ids | wb data --format ttl > entities.ttl

The same can be done using wb query

wd query --property P50 --object Q237087 > fred_vargas_books_ids
cat fred_vargas_books_ids | wd data --format ttl > fred_vargas_books.ttl

NB: other options such as filtered properties will be ignored

This can be used to generated partial Turtle dumps, if Wikibase full dump is too big for your needs, but be aware that it is way less efficient that its NDJSON (the default format) counterpart: while for NDJSON, entities are fetched by batches of 50 (the Wikibase API limit), in TTL, entities are fetched one by one, using the /wiki/Special:EntityData/Qxxx.ttl endpoint.

csv

wb data does not return csv natively, you are instead invited to combine it with a tool such as jq to build an array of values and format it as csv. Example:

# Get entities English labels as csv
echo Q12377508 Q193943 | wd data --props labels.en --simplify | jq -r '[.id, .labels.en] | @csv'
# Get entities English labels as csv, and fallback on any other language if the English label is missing
echo Q12377508 Q193943 | wd data --props labels --simplify | jq -r '[.id, .labels.en // first(.labels[])] | @csv'

property claims

You can also use this command to get the data of an entity's claims for a certain property

wd data 'Q2#P31'
wd data --simplify 'Q2#P31'
wd data --simplify --keep ids,references,qualifiers,hashes 'Q2#P31'

single claim

The command also support finding a single claim from a claim GUID. (If you have a use case where you would need to fetch several claims at once this way, feel welcome to open an issue)

wd data 'Q2$50fad68d-4f91-f878-6f29-e655af54690e'
wd data --simplify 'Q2$50fad68d-4f91-f878-6f29-e655af54690e'
wd data --simplify --keep ids,references,qualifiers,hashes 'Q2$50fad68d-4f91-f878-6f29-e655af54690e'

To avoid having to quote the claim GUID, you can also use the hyphenated format

wd data Q2-50fad68d-4f91-f878-6f29-e655af54690e

entities schema

wd data E35

wb generate-template

This command lets you generate a data file (JSON by default) pre-formatted to be passed as input of wb create-entity or wb edit-entity

wb generate-template <entity-id>
# Alias:
wb gt <entity-id>

# Get Q123 pre-formatted data
wd generate-template Q4115189 > Q4115189.edit-template.cjs
# Then the typical workflow would be to edit the generated file as you please,
# before passing it back to the `wb edit-entity` command
wd edit-entity ./Q4115189.edit-template.cjs

# Working with a JS file allows a lighter syntax, and to add entities labels
# but if you prefer to work with JSON, that's possible:
wd generate-template Q4115189 --format json > Q4115189.edit-template.json

# If your goal is to use an entity as a base to create a new entity,
# you should use --create-mode
wd generate-template Q4115189 --create-mode > Q4115189.create-template.cjs
# This is typically fit to be used in preparation for the `wb create-entity` command
wd create-entity ./Q4115189.create-template.cjs
# But that id- and guid-less template can be turned back into an addition-only edit template
# by setting an `id` in the returned object
wd edit-entity ./Q4115189.create-template.cjs Q123

# For reference,
wd generate-template --format json Q4115189
# is equivalent to
wd data --simplify --keep ids,references,qualifiers,hashes,snaktypes Q4115189

Options:

  • -f, --format <json|js|mjs>: output template in the desired format. When requesting only one entity, defaults to js. Defaults to json when requesting several entities.
  • -m, --create-mode: optimize for creating an entity from a previously existing one, namely dropping ids from the existing entity used as template

Tailored templates

# Only get data required to edit the labels, claims and sitelinks
wd generate-template Q4115189 --props labels,claims,sitelinks

# Only get data required to edit the Dutch label, the P31 claims, and the frwiki sitelink
wd generate-template Q4115189 --props labels.nl,claims.P31,sitelinks.frwiki

# Only get
# - terms (labels, descriptions, and aliases) in Russian
# - P31 and P659 claims (with a lazy syntax)
# - Spanish Wikipedia sitelinks (with a lazy syntax)
wd generate-template Q4115189 --props ru,P31,P659,eswiki

Dynamic templates

# Get the generate-template as a Javascript module,
# ready to be customized to take arguments from the command-line,
# which is typically useful to edit or create several entities with one template
wb generate-template Q123 --format js > template.js
# Call the generated JS generate-template after customization
# by passing the required arguments
wb create-entity ./template.js foo bar 456 'https://example.org'
wb create-entity ./template.js buz bla 987 'https://example2.org'

Generate many templates

# Pass ids as arguments
wb generate-template Q123 Q124
# or on stdin (useful especially when there are many ids)
echo Q123 Q124 | wb generate-template

Generating many templates at once can be useful, for instance to apply the same custom modification to many entities

Example: let's imagine that you want to create a P370 claim for each P1106 claims, where the P370 value would be the P1106 value prefixed by -foobar, and remove the P1106 claim.

# Find the ids of entities to modify (see the content of find_entities_with_P1106_claims.rq below)
wd sparql ./find_entities_with_P1106_claims.rq > ids
# Get one template per line, requesting only the P1106 claims to let all the rest of the entity intact
cat ids | wd generate-template --props P1106 > templates.ndjson
# Apply a JS function (see the content of transform_P1106_into_P370.js below)
# using https://www.npmjs.com/package/ndjson-apply
cat templates.ndjson | ndjson-apply ./transform_P1106_into_P370.js > cleaned_up_templates.ndjson
cat cleaned_up_templates.ndjson | wd edit-entity --batch --summary 'doing what needed to be done'

# Or for short, if you know what you are doing and don't want to inspect intermediary results
wd sparql ./find_entities_ids.rq |
  # --props P1106: limit the data to edit to just P1106 claims
  # --no-minimize: used to get a consistent output format (single claims will still be in arrays)
  wd generate-template --props P1106 --no-minimize |
  ndjson-apply ./transform_P1106_into_P370.js |
  wd edit-entity --batch --summary 'doing what needed to be done'

Where ./find_entities_with_P1106_claims.rq could be something like:

# find_entities_with_P1106_claims.rq
SELECT ?item {
  ?item wdt:P1106 ?value .
}

and ./transform_P1106_into_P370.js could be something like:

// transform_P1106_into_P370.js
module.exports = function (entity) {
  return {
    id: entity.id,
    claims: {
      P370: entity.claims.P1106.map(generateP370ClaimFromP1106Claim)
      P1106: entity.claims.P1106.map(removeClaim)
    }
  }
}
const generateP370ClaimFromP1106Claim = function (claim) {
  return {
    value: `${claim.value.amount}-foobar`,
    references: {
      P854: 'http://zombo.com'
    }
  }
}
const removeClaim = function (claim) {
  return {
    id: claim.id,
    remove: true
  }
}

Generate template from a specific revision

wd generate-template Q4115189 --revision 943703455

Use cases:

  • Easily recover specific data elements from a previous revision
wd generate-template Q4115189 --revision 943703455 --props claims.P516 > ./Q4115189_lost_P516_claims.json
wd edit-entity ./Q4115189_lost_P516_claims.json

wb revisions

Get entities revisions data

wb revisions <entities ids>
# Alias:
wb r <entities ids>
wd revisions Q3548931
wd r Q3548931
wd r Property:P31

# The requested ids can also be passed from stdin
echo 'Q1032158
Q2665313
Q5420639' | wd r

Options:

wb id

This one is kind of the inverse of wb label: pass it the title of a Wikipedia article and it will return the corresponding Wikidata id Status command: still very much coupled to Wikidata, especially for sitelinks resolution

wb id <article title or any Wikimedia project URL>
wd id Cantabria
# => Q3946
wd id New Delhi
# => Q987

Options:

  • -v, --verbose: make the output more verbose
  • -c, --clipboard: copy the command's result to the clipboard
  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify from which language the title comes By default, it will look at the Wikipedia corresponding to your environment local language (process.env.LANG), but you can specify another language by passing a 2-letters language code
wd id -l fr science politique
# => Q36442

You can also pass it full Wikipedia urls and let it deduce the language from there

wd id https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche
# => Q9358
wd id https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Auteur:George_Sand
# => Q3816

wb props

A command to access the list of all Wikibase properties in a given language (by default the environment local language)

wb props [filter]
# Alias:
wb p [filter]

By default, your config or environment language is used:

wd props

Outputs a JSON object of the kind:

[...]
  "P2897": "identifiant Eldoblaje Movie",
  "P2898": null,
  "P2899": "âge minimal",
[...]

NB: properties without a label in the requested language are set to null, as you can see above for P2898 in French

This is especially convenient when you're looking for a property:

# look for a property having "image" in its label, description or aliases (case insensitive unless the argument contains capitals)
wd props photo

Outputs:

{
  "P18": "image",
  "P344": "director of photography",
  "P1259": "coordinates of the point of view",
  "P1442": "image of grave",
  "P1847": "Nasjonalbiblioteket photographer ID",
  "P1947": "Mapillary ID",
  "P1966": "Biblioteca Nacional de Chile catalogue number",
  "P2033": "Category for pictures taken with camera",
  "P2061": "aspect ratio",
  "P2485": "Fashion Model Directory photographer ID",
  "P2634": "model",
  "P2750": "Photographers' Identities Catalog ID",
  "P3269": "Fotografen.nl ID",
  "P3293": "BALaT image ID",
  "P4082": "image captured with",
  "P4640": "photosphere image",
  "P4759": "Luminous-Lint ID",
  "P5023": "activity policy in this place",
  "P5160": "Thesaurus For Graphic Materials ID"
}

Matching on labels, descriptions, and aliases can come very handy in cases such as the following:

wd props RSS

Output:

{
  "P1019": "feed URL"
}

But in case you want to match only on labels (ignoring descriptions, and aliases), you can pass the pattern to grep instead:

wd props | grep photo

Get the list of all Wikibase properties in another language

Option: -l, --lang <lang>: specify the properties labels language

wd props -l sv
# outputs the properties in Swedish

Get the list of all Wikibase properties with their types

Every property accepts values of a precise type, one of CommonsMedia, ExternalId, String, WikibaseItem, Time, GlobeCoordinate, Monolingualtext, Quantity, Url, WikibaseProperty, or Math

Option: -t, --type: include properties types

wd props --type

Outputs:

{
  "P6": { "label": "head of government", "type": "WikibaseItem" },
  "P10": { "label": "video", "type": "CommonsMedia" },
  "P14": { "label": "graphic symbol of thoroughfare", "type": "CommonsMedia" },
  "P15": { "label": "route map", "type": "CommonsMedia" },
  "P16": { "label": "highway system", "type": "WikibaseItem" },
  "P17": { "label": "country", "type": "WikibaseItem" },
  "P18": { "label": "image", "type": "CommonsMedia" },
  "P19": { "label": "place of birth", "type": "WikibaseItem" },
  "P20": { "label": "place of death", "type": "WikibaseItem" },
[...]

Get the list of all Wikibase properties of a given type

Re-using the possibility to pass a pattern to match, you can pass a property type

wd props --type Url
wd props --type CommonsMedia

NB: make sure to respect the case to get an exact match, otherwise it only match on the labels, descriptions and aliases.

Get the list of all Wikibase properties with their labels, types, descriptions, and aliases

wd props --details

Reset properties

wb props first tries to find the list in the props folder (created at wikibase-cli root), and request them to query.wikidata.org if missing.

This means that after a while, your local version will miss new and updated properties: this can be solved by using the --reset or --no-cache options:

Option: --no-cache: ignore properties cache: fetch properties from the SPARQL endpoint, even if already cached Option: -r, --reset: clear cached properties, in all languages

wb sparql

A command to run a SPARQL query and get its JSON output

wb sparql <sparql or javascript file path>

static request from a SPARQL file

From this SPARQL query file:

# author_works.rq
SELECT ?work WHERE {
  ?work wdt:P50 wd:Q42 .
}

get its output from your terminal like so:

wb sparql ./path/to/author_works.rq > ./results.json

Options:

  • -r, --raw: output raw SPARQL results (instead of results simplified by wikibase-sdk simplifySparqlResults function
  • -f, --format <format>: set output format: json, xml, tsv, csv, binrdf, table. Default: table when 1 value is selected, json otherwise.
  • -x, --index <variable>: get the results indexed by one of the SELECTed variables
  • -e, --sparql-endpoint <url>: customize the SPARQL endpoint
  • -v, --verbose: log the generated SPARQL
  • -d, --dry: output the SPARQL without running the query
  • -o, --open: open the query in the Query Service GUI
wb sparql ./path/to/query.rq > ./results.json
wb sparql ./path/to/query.rq --raw > ./raw_sparql_results.json
wb sparql ./path/to/query.rq --index someVariableName > ./results_index.json
wb sparql ./path/to/query.rq --format table > ./results_table
wb sparql ./path/to/query.rq --format tsv > ./results.tsv

This command can actually be used on any SPARQL endpoint:

echo 'SELECT * { ?s ?p ?o } LIMIT 5' > ./get_some_triples.rq
# On Wikidata
wd sparql ./get_some_triples.rq
# On another Wikibase
wb sparql ./get_some_triples.rq -e https://wikibase.world/query/sparql
# On a non-Wikibase SPARQL endpoint
wb sparql ./get_some_triples.rq -e http://data.bibliotheken.nl/sparql

dynamic request from a JS template

Alernatively, you can pass the path from a javascript file exporting a function, the remaining arguments will be passed to the function:

// author_works.js
module.exports = function (authorId) {
  return `SELECT ?item { ?item wdt:P50 wd:${authorId} . }`
}

Note that this function can also be async:

// author_works_from_external_id.js
module.exports = async function (externalIdProperty, externalIdValue) {
  const authorId = await getAuthorIdFromWorkId(externalIdProperty, externalIdValue)
  return `SELECT ?item { ?item wdt:P50 wd:${authorId} . }`
}
wd sparql ./path/to/author_works.js Q535 --json > ./Q535_works.json
wd sparql ./path/to/author_works_from_external_id.js P268 11907966z --json > ./P268_11907966z_works.json
# This simple query could actually have been done using the `wd query` command
wd query --property P50 --object Q5879
# but, meh, let's keep it simple for the demo

You can use it to build alias commands for the requests you use often: the above can then be written

alias authors_works="wd sparql ./path/to/author_works.js --json"
authors_works Q535 > ./Q535_works.json
authors_works Q5879 > ./Q5879_works.json

You also use it to generate a SPARQL file, using the --dry flag:

wb sparql ./path/to/query_template.js --dry > ./query.rq

See wikibase-cli request template collection for some examples.

request template help menu

If you end up using a template often, it can be useful to be able to easily remember how to use it; this can be done by setting metadata in the template to allow the generation of a help menu: see example

wd sparql ./test/assets/query_with_metadata.js --help

output format

format option comment
--format table One result per line, with simplified values (ex: an item id rather than a URL) in column. Default when only one variable is SELECTed
--format json Simplified JSON results. Default when several variables are SELECTed
--format json --raw Return non-simplified JSON results
--format inline Space-separated simplified values. Available when only 1 variable is SELECTed (fallbacks to json above)
--format xml
--format csv
--format tsv
--format binrdf

custom SPARQL endpoint

The wb sparql command can actually be used with on other SPARQL endpoints:

wb sparql --sparql-endpoint http://data.bnf.fr/sparql bnf_request.rq
wb sparql --sparql-endpoint http://live.dbpedia.org/sparql --raw --index item dbpedia_request.rq

wb query

wb query <options>
# Alias:
wb q <options>

A command to generate and run a simple SPARQL query, passing one or two of the elements that make a statement:

  • -s, --subject
  • -p, --property
  • -o, --object
# what is the entity id matching the twitter username (P2002) "timberners_lee"?
wd query --property P2002 --object timberners_lee
# which works have exoplanets (Q44559) for main subject (P921)?
wd query --property P921 --object Q44559 --labels
# or with the short options syntax
wd query -p P921 -o Q44559 -a

This can also be used to get all the uses of a property

# Get all the subjects and objects linked by the property P2586
wd query --property P2586

NB: if the --object value could be interpreted as a number (123.456) but should be a string, make sure to pass it between quotes:

# Doesn't find anything
wd query --property P2448 --object 2217527

# Finds Q138172
wd query --property P2448 --object '"2217527"'

Other options:

  • -f, --format <format>: set output format: json, xml, tsv, csv, binrdf, table. Default: table when 1 value is selected, json otherwise (same as wb sparql).
  • -r, --raw: output raw JSON results (instead of results simplified by wikidata-sdk simplifySparqlResults function
  • -a, --labels: requests results labels
  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify the labels' language
  • -n, --limit <num>: set the request results limit
  • -c, --counts: return a count of matching results
  • -v, --verbose: log the generated request
  • -x, --index <variable>: get the results indexed by subject, property, or object
  • -e, --sparql-endpoint <url>: customize the SPARQL endpoint (see wb sparql for examples of how to use this option)
  • -d, --dry: output the SPARQL without running the query
  • -o, --open: open the query in the Query Service GUI
  • --describe <node>: make a DESCRIBE request
  • --sample: get a sample of triples from a triple store

wb convert

Convert batches of external ids to Wikibase ids and vice versa

# From external ids to Wikibase entity ids
wb convert --property <property> --objects <ids...>
wb convert -p <property> -o <ids...>
echo <ids...> | wb convert -p <property> -o

# From Wikibase entity ids to external ids
wb convert --property <property> --subjects <ids...>
wb convert -p <property> -s <ids...>
echo <ids...> | wb convert -p <property> -s
# get the Wikibase ids corresponding to those BNF ids
wd convert -p P268 -o 11865344k 11932251d
# get the BNF ids corresponding to those Wikibase ids
wd convert -p P268 -s Q45 Q140
# the same but taking the ids from stdin
echo Q45 Q140 | wd convert -p P268 -s
# which can be a file
cat ids_list | wd convert -p P268 -s
wd convert -p P268 -s < ids_list
# or any command outputting a list of ids:
# here, we get the INSEE department code (P2586) of all French departments (Q6465)
wd sparql all-instances Q6465 | wd convert -p P2586 -s

NB: this conversion is done by batches of 100, so calling this command with 100,000 ids will sequentially make 1000 requests to the SPARQL endpoint, which isn't very efficient; depending on the size of the dataset you're targetting, you should probably rather request all the ids at once using wb query --property <your-property-id>, passing the option --index object if the data you have at hand is the external ids, and --index subject if you are instead starting from the Wikibase ids.

Other options:

  • -v, --verbose: log the generated request
  • -e, --sparql-endpoint <url>: customize the SPARQL endpoint (see wb sparql for examples of how to use this option)

wb open

wb open <entities ids>
# Alias:
wb o <entities ids>

A command to open a pages on Wikibase in a browser from the command line (yep, you can be that lazy). For more sophisticated queries, see the wb hub

open entities and properties pages

wd open Q123
# opens https://wikidata.org/entity/Q123 in your default browser

wd open P659
# opens https://www.wikidata.org/entity/P659

wd open L525
# opens https://www.wikidata.org/entity/L525

wd open L525-F1
# opens https://www.wikidata.org/entity/L525-F1

wd open L525-S1
# opens https://www.wikidata.org/entity/L525-S1

# also working with any string that contains an entity id
wd open https://inventaire.io/entity/wd:Q33977
# opens https://wikidata.org/wiki/Q33977

# on a Custom wikibase instance
wb open Q123 -i http://localhost:8181
# opens http://localhost:8181/entity/Q123

Options:

  • -y, --history: open the entity history page
  • -t, --talk: open the entity talk page
  • -r, --revision <id>: open a specific revision
  • -p, --wikipedia: open the Wikipedia article
  • -u, --url: simply generate the url, don't open it in a browser
# open https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q123&action=history
wd open -y Q123
# open https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septembre as French is my default system language
wd open -p Q123
  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify which Wikipedia edition should be targeted
wd open -p -l sv Q123
# opens https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/September instead
wd open -p -l sv Q123 -u
# outputs https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/September without opening it in the browser

open a search page

wd open Dan Simmons
# opens https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=Dan%20Simmons

open a specific revision's page

wd open Q44559 --revision 942578737

wb hub

wb hub <query>
# Alias:
wb h <query>

A command to open web pages using the Hub. Pass arguments to the Hub as you would from a URL, replacing ? and & by spaces.

Command status: inheriting Wikidata coupling from the Hub

Options:

  • -l, --lang <lang>: specify which language should be prefered
  • -j, --json: get the Hub redirection data instead of opening the page in browser

Examples:

# Find the entity having 24597135 as VIAF id and open the corresponding page on inventaire.io
wd hub viaf:24597135 site=inventaire
# Get the image illustrating Q3 in 300px
wd hub Q3 property=image width=300 --json | jq .destination.url

wb lang

Identify a language and return its associated data

Command status: coupled to Wikidata languages

get the Wikibase id corresponding to a language code

wd lang ak
# => Q28026

get the language code corresponding to a Wikibase id

wd lang Q28026
# => ak

get languages matching a given string

wd lang slo
# sk    Q9058      Slovak     Slovenčina
# sl    Q9063      Slovenian  Slovenščina

Options:

  • -j, --json: get the full language data as JSON
wd lang ak --json
wd lang Q28026 --json

Both commands return the following data:

{
  "code": "ak",
  "label": "Akan",
  "native": "Akana",
  "wd": "Q28026"
}

wb badges

List sitelink badges available on a Wikibase instance

# List badges on the Wikibase instance set in config
wb badges

# List badges on an explicit Wikibase instance
wb badges --instance https://test.wikidata.org