README

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The ID Generator extension provides a minimalistic sequential numeric ID generation function. It was created by Professional.Wiki.

The wikitext {{#next_number:}} outputs 1 the first time it is used, then 2, etc.

Installable and usable without running the "update.php" maintenance script. Created as an alternative to the IDProvider extension since it cannot be installed via Composer and, moreover, requires an extra database table.

Usage

To get a new numeric ID:

{{#next_number:}}

The above function will output a new number on every reparse of the page. If you want a number to be generated once, you can use MediaWiki's subst function as follows:

{{subst:#next_number:}}

You can have multiple id sequences by providing an ID type. This type can be any string up to 60 characters.

{{#next_number:project}}

Number increment details

• IDs are incremented globally, not per page.
• Increments happen on every parse.
• MediaWiki might parse the parser function more than once per save, so the function output might go from 1 to 3.
• You are guaranteed to get a higher ID on every generation. Usage is not tracked, so there is no reuse.

Example

A page with {{#next_number:}} {{#next_number:}} will output 1 2, assuming the extension was just installed. If the ID counter was already at 100, you'd get 101 102. If you then refresh this page you'd get 103 104.

Platform requirements

• PHP 7.1 or later
• MediaWiki 1.31 or later (and likely also older versions)

Installation

The recommended way to install ID Generator is using Composer with MediaWiki's built-in support for Composer.

Step 1

Change to the base directory of your MediaWiki installation. If you do not have a "composer.local.json" file yet, create one and add the following content to it:

{
	"require": {
		"professional-wiki/id-generator": "~1.0"
	}
}

If you already have a "composer.local.json" file add the following line to the end of the "require" section in your file:

"professional-wiki/id-generator": "~1.0"

Remember to add a comma to the end of the preceding line in this section.

Step 2

Run the following command in your shell:

php composer.phar update --no-dev

Note if you have Git installed on your system add the --prefer-source flag to the above command.

Step 3

Add the following line to the end of your "LocalSettings.php" file:

wfLoadExtension( 'IdGenerator' );

Contribution and support

If you want to contribute work to the project please subscribe to the developers mailing list and have a look at the contribution guideline.

• File an issue
• Submit a pull request
• Professional MediaWiki support is available via Professional Wiki.

License

BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License (BSD-3-Clause).

Release notes

Version 1.0.0

Released on January 27th, 2020.

Initial release