Extension PubmedParser

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PubmedParser

PubmedParser is an extension for MediaWiki. It provides a parser keyword (#pmid) to fetch article information by unique ID from the Pubmed database. It outputs the article information formatted as Wiki markup for a template. The template can be defined inside the Wiki and adjusted as needed. Compared with the other, very useful extension Pubmed (which, however, has not been updated in a while), this extension can be fully configured using Wiki messages. It does not require editing configuration files on the server.

PubmedParser fetches information on a single article at a time only. If you would like to generate lists of articles, please have a look at the Pubmed extension (provided it still works with recent versions of MediaWiki).

If the Cite extension is installed, you can add an additional parameter to the #pmid keyword, and PubmedParser will generate a <ref name="additional parameter">...</ref> structure for you. This makes it extremely easy to insert reusably references into your Wiki page.

Contents

Installation

To obtain the extension, you can either download a compressed archive from the Github releases page: Choose one of the 'Source code' archives and extract it in your Wiki's extension folder. Note that these archives contain a folder that is named after the release version, e.g. PubmedParser-5.1.0. You may want to rename the folder to PubmedParser.

Alternatively (and preferred by the author), if you have Git, you can clone the repository in the usual way into the extensions folder.

To activate the extension, add the following to your LocalSettings.php file:

wfLoadExtension( 'PubmedParser' );

Older versions of the extension required the PHP parameter allow_url_fopen to be able to fetch XML data from PubMed. Since there are security concerns over using this parameter, from version 1.0.0 on, PubmedParser will also work if this option is not set. In that case, it will require the Curl library. Many PHP servers are configured to work with Curl.

Configuration

NCBI API key

NCBI/Pubmed imposes a limit to the number of requests per second. If you expect your wiki to issue more than three requests per second (> 3/s), you will need an API key. The API key is a hexadecimal number with 36 digits. With an API key, the limit is raised to 10 per second. See "New API Keys for the E-utilities" and "A General Introduction to the E-utilities" at NCBI for more information.

Please note that this rate limit applies to your server, not to the users' browsers. If you edit a page and have more than 3 new #pmid keywords in the text, your server will issue as many calls to the Pubmed API, and this may exceed the rate limit. If you edit a page with pre-existing #pmid keywords, no additional calls to the Pubmed API will be issued, because those records can be fetched from cache. You can obtain an API key from the NCBI Account Settings page.

In a similar vein, if there is a possibility that more than three users of your wiki edit pages containing a #pmid keyword at the same time, you may also want to obtain and configure an API key in order to prevent error messages from Pubmed.

Once you have your API key, place it in your LocalSettings.php as follows:

$wgPubmedParserApiKey = `<your personal 36 hexadecimal digits>';

Keep your API key private to prevent abuse (which would be tracked back to your NCBI account).

Remote fetch method

By default, PubmedParser will attempt to use the PHP function file_get_contents() to fetch article information from the remote NCBI servers. You can change this to cURL if you wish -- for instance, if file_get_contents() is not available to you:

$wgPubmedParserRemoteFetchMethod = 'curl'; // default is 'file_get_contents'

Usage

To retrieve the article with PMID 19782018, insert the following into your page:

{{#pmid:19782018}}

This will produce the following output:

{{pubmed|pmid=19782018|authors=Alon|allauthors=Alon
    |title=How to choose a good scientific problem
    |journal=Molecular cell|journala=Mol. Cell.
    |year=2009|volume=35|pages=726-8|doi=10.1016/j.molcel.2009.09.013}}

However, you will never get to see this output, since {{pubmed|...}} represents a template, which is immediately processed by the MediaWiki software.

Notes:

• The template pubmed must exist in your wiki; otherwise, "Template:pubmed" will be inserted in red into your displayed page (click on the red link to create the template).
• You can fully customize the names of the template itself as well as the names of the parameters of the template (see below).
• Your template does not need to use all parameters; unused parameters will be discarded.
• authors is an abbreviated list of the author names; use allauthors if you need all of the names.
• journal is the full journal name as stored in Pubmed; use journala to get the MedLine title abbreviation.

Thus, if your template looks like this:

{{{authors}}}: {{{title}}}. ''{{{journala}}}'' {{{year}}};{{{volume}}}:{{{pages}}}.

You will get this:

{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"
| Alon: How to choose a good scientific problem. ''Mol. Cell.'' 2009;35:726-8.
|}

Template variables

You can use the following variables in your "pubmed" template. Note that you can edit all variable names (as well as the name of the template itself) according to your needs (see Customization below).

Parameter	Description
{{{authors}}}	Abbreviated list of author names. If there are only two authors, they will be concatenated by "&"; with three or more authors, an "et al." will be appended after the first author. Note: You can edit the "&" and "et al." at Special:AllMessages (see below).
{{{authorsi}}}	Abbreviated list of author names, just like above, but with initials appended. Note: You can edit the separator between last name and first name as well as what to put after the initials (e.g., a period) at Special:AllMessages (see below).
{{{allauthors}}}	List of all author names. The last author's name is appended with "&". Note: You can edit the "&" and "et al." at Special:AllMessages (see below).
{{{allauthorsi}}}	List of all author names, just like above, but with initials appended. Note: You can edit the separator between last name and first name as well as what to put after the initials (e.g., a period) at Special:AllMessages (see below).
{{{title}}}	The title of the article. A trailing period will be stripped.
{{{journal}}}	The full name of the journal as stored in Pubmed. Capitalization is the same as in Pubmed.
{{{journalcaps}}}	The full name of the journal as stored in Pubmed with all words capitalized.
{{{journala}}}	The abbreviated name of the journal (ISO specification), e.g.: N. Engl. J. Med.
{{{journalanop}}}	The abbreviated name of the journal (ISO specification) without periods, e.g.: N Engl J Med
{{{year}}}	The year the article was published.
{{{volume}}}	The volume of the journal.
{{{pages}}}	The pagination as stored in Pubmed. Leading digits may be omitted in the last page number; for example, "1324 through 1336" is given as "1324-36".
{{{pmid}}}	The PMID number (i.e., the same ID that was used to call #pmid).
{{{doi}}}	The DOI ([Digital Object Identifer][]) of the article that points to the full text. Not all Pubmed entries provide this information.
{{{abstract}}}	The article's abstract. If you want to have a ''collapsible'' abstract in your template, consider the example below.

Example template pubmed

{{{authors}}}: {{{title}}}. ''{{{journala}}}'' {{{year}}};
{{#if:{{{volume|}}}|{{{volume|}}}:}}{{{pages|)}}}.
PMID: [{{{pmid|}}}](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/{{{pmid|}}}).
{{**#if**:{{{doi|}}}|[DOI](https://dx.doi.org/{{{doi|}}}).}}

(When copying this into your own Wiki, make sure to place the entire code on one line.)

Formatted example:

Cumming ''et al.'': Error bars in experimental biology.
''J. Cell Biol.'' 2007;177:7-11.
PMID: [17420288](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17420288).
[DOI](https://dx.doi.org/10.1083/jcb.200611141).

Note: This template requires the ParserFunctions extension (which provides {{#if:test|then|else}}) to link the DOI only if it is contained in the Pubmed data.

Alternative with collapsible abstract:

{{#if:{{{authorsi}}}|{{{authorsi}}}:}} {{{title}}}.
''{{#if:{{{journalanop}}}|{{{journalanop}}}|{{{journalcaps}}}}}''
{{{year}}}{{#if:{{{volume}}}|;}}{{{volume}}}{{#if:{{{firstpage}}}|:{{{firstpage}}}}}.
PMID: [{{{pmid|}}}](https://pubmed.gov/{{{pmid|}}}).
{{#if:{{{doi}}}|DOI: [{{{doi}}}](https://dx.doi.org/{{{doi}}}).}}
{{#if:{{{pmc}}}|[Full text](https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/{{{pmc}}}?report=reader)}}
{{#if:{{{abstract}}}|<span class="abstract mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
data-expandtext="Abstract" data-collapsetext="Abstract">{{{abstract}}}</span>}}

Adding <ref></ref> tags automatically

You may add an additional parameter to the #PMID call to make the PubmedParser automatically insert <ref></ref> tags. The Cite extension will use these tags to build your bibliography. To reuse the reference, simply insert <ref name="yourparameter" />.

Example:

{{#pmid:19782018|Alon2009}}

This will produce the following output:

<ref name="Alon2009">{{pubmed|pmid=19782018|authors=Alon|allauthors=Alon|title=How to choose a good scientific problem|journal=Molecular cell|journala=Mol. Cell.|year=2009|volume=35|pages=726-8|doi=10.1016/j.molcel.2009.09.013}}</ref>

Since this output is immediately parsed again by MediaWiki, you will never get to see it this way; instead, you will see the footnote generated by the Cite extension, which contains whatever output your template "pubmed" produces from this.

To cite this same paper again, simply type <ref name="Alon2009" />

Forcing reload from Pubmed

Occasionally, Pubmed article information is updated, e.g. when an article that was initially published online-only appears in print. When using the cache feature, you can force retrieval of information from Pubmed by adding a 'reload' parameter to your #pmid call:

{{#pmid:123456|reload}}

or

{{#pmid:123456|Miller2011|reload}}

It goes without saying that the updated information is stored in the cache folder.

Note that reloading only occurs when a page is edited but not when it is viewed. Therefore, you can leave the 'reload' parameter in your #pmid call without causing superfluous download requests from Pubmed. The next time you edit a page, you can remove the 'reload' option, and the article information will be retrieved from cache again.

Specifying a Custom Template Name

In addition to using the default template specified in the extension's configuration, the PubmedParser extension allows users to specify a different template name directly within the #pmid parser function call. This can be particularly useful if you have multiple templates for different types of articles or display formats and want to choose among them on a case-by-case basis.

To specify a custom template name, simply add a parameter prefixed by #. For example:

{{#pmid:19782018|#anothertemplate}}
{{#pmid:19782018|Alon2009|#anothertemplate}}

In the example above, instead of using the default template (e.g., pubmed), the extension will use the anothertemplate template to format and display the fetched Pubmed article information. Ensure that the custom template you specify exists in your wiki. If it doesn't, a red link to the non-existent template will be displayed on the page.

Of course! Here's a suitable explanation that you can incorporate into the documentation:

Passing Additional Parameters to the Template

The PubmedParser extension supports direct parameter passing in the form of key=value within the #pmid parser function. This feature is especially valuable when you want to provide supplementary information or customize the display of the fetched article data in the template.

For example, if you wish to provide an additional full-text URL for the article:

{{#pmid:19782018|Alon2009|fulltexturl=https://example.com/fulltext.pdf}}

In the above syntax, the fulltexturl parameter with the value https://example.com/fulltext.pdf will be passed directly to the template. Within the template, you can then use the {{{fulltexturl}}} placeholder to display or link to the provided full-text URL.

Customization

You can customize the name of the template as well as the names of the parameters by editing the system messages of your wiki: Go to Special:AllMessages and filter for pubmedparser.

Name	Description	Default value
pubmedparser-templatename	Name of the MediaWiki template	pubmed
pubmedparser-abstract	Template parameter for the abstract	abstract
pubmedparser-authors	Template parameter for the abbreviated list of authors	authors
pubmedparser-authorsi	Template parameter for abbreviated list of authors with initials	authorsi
pubmedparser-allauthors	Template parameter for the complete list of authors	allauthors
pubmedparser-allauthorsi	Template parameter for the complete list of authors with initials	allauthorsi
pubmedparser-journal	Template parameter for the journal name (Pubmed style)	journal
pubmedparser-journalcaps	Template parameter for the journal name (capitalized)	journalcaps
pubmedparser-journala	Template parameter for the abbreviated journal name	journala
pubmedparser-journalanop	Template parameter for the complete list of authors without periods	journalanop
pubmedparser-volume	Template parameter for the volume	volume
pubmedparser-pages	Template parameter for the pagination	pages
pubmedparser-firstpage	Template parameter for the first page number	firstpage
pubmedparser-year	Template parameter for the year of publication	year
pubmedparser-doi	Template parameter for the digital object identifier (DOI)	doi
pubmedparser-title	Template parameter for the article title	title
pubmedparser-and	Concatenation symbol for the last author name (e.g., "and")	&
pubmedparser-etal	Abbreviation of the author list	''et al.''
pubmedparser-initialseparator	Separator between last name and initials (e.g., ",")	[empty]
pubmedparser-initialperiod	Abbreviation symbol for the initials (e.g., "." or ". ").	[empty]

Upgrading from previous versions of this extension

The 4.x and later versions finally respect the database prefix settings for the Pubmed caching table. Before upgrading the database (php maintenance/update.php), you may want to manually rename any existing Pubmed caching table with your custom prefix:

RENAME TABLE Pubmed TO <YourPrefix>Pubmed;

(Or use your GUI/web UI of choice, e.g. phpMyAdmin.)

Of course this is only necessary if you to use table prefixes, i.e. you have a line $wgDBPrefix = '<YourPrefix>'; in your LocalSettings.php. Caveat: Don't change this MediaWiki setting after installation; otherwise, you'll need to manually rename all your database tables!

License

Copyright (c) 2011-2023 Daniel Kraus (bovender) and co-authors

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.