Why does full-text search inside titles return error

Question

When I perform full-text search with Wikipedia API, I can not narrow it to titles only (srwhat=title).

returns results, if I add srwhat=title, I got an error:

<api servedby="mw69">
  <error code="srsearch-title-disabled" info="title search is disabled"/>
</api>

This error is even listed in the docs ( http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Search ), but without any explanation.

It seems there is a way to workaround this. See this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27624431/wikipedia-api-search-titles-generator — Damjan Pavlica, Oct 20 '15 at 19:37
[opensearch](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=help&modules=opensearch) is a good alternative — John Strood, Jul 27 '18 at 08:44

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 22 '15 at 13:06

7

Actually, there is a way to workaround this, just add intitle: prefix to your search term:

srsearch=intitle:sql

answered Oct 22 '15 at 13:06

Damjan Pavlica

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 15 '13 at 15:03

3

It means that the search engine Wikipedia uses (Lucene, I believe) does not support title search.

answered Jan 15 '13 at 15:03

svick

You mean, there are features planned in the API that could not be supported due to particular engine used? – Maksee Jan 15 '13 at 18:06
2

MediaWiki is not just Wikipedia. Other wikis don't use Lucene, so they can support title search. But Wikipedia doesn't. – svick Jan 15 '13 at 18:37
2

Thanks, looking at the searching help, I also found that I can use the same operators in the search (so "intitle:" should help) so no problem with not supporting titles directly – Maksee Jan 15 '13 at 20:06

2 Answers2