A Python script to fetch the RSS/ATOM feed for you watchlist using the new MediaWiki API. The API is still in alpha, and so is this program, hence there are no guarantees.
The program takes two compulsory parameters--your username and password--and an optional third parameter specifying the feed format which must either be "rss" or "atom".
#!/usr/bin/python """Get Wikipedia watchlist as an RSS/ATOM feed (c) Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya, 2007 Licence GNU-GPL Usage: wikiwatch <username> <password> [format] [format] is either 'rss' or 'atom' """ import sys import xml.sax,xml.sax.handler import urllib,urllib2,cookielib,httplib #Constants version="0.1alpha" user_agent="wikiwatch.py ([email protected])/"+version usage="Usage: wikiwatch <Username> <Password> [rss/atom]" apiURL="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php" class LoginFailedException(Exception): """Login to Wikipedia failed """ def __init__(self,status): self.message=status class RunTimeError(Exception): """Run-time error """ def __init__(self,what): self.message=what class BadCmdException(Exception): """Bad command-line arguments to program """ def __init__(self): self.message="Bad command-line argument" def callapi(data,cookie_jar): """Make an API call data: list of tuples containing data to be sent in the PUT request cookie_jar: cookielib.CookieJar used for the request Returns a file-like object containing the response """ opener=urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cookie_jar)) req=urllib2.Request(apiURL,urllib.urlencode(data)) req.add_header("User-Agent",user_agent) return opener.open(req) def wikiauth(uname,passwd,cookie_jar): """Authenticate to Wikipedia and return authentication tokens as cookies uname: Wikipedia username passwd: Wikipedia password cookie_jar: cookielib.CookieJar to store authentication cookies Returns nothing Raises LoginFailedException in case of failure """ class LoginResp(xml.sax.ContentHandler): def __init__(self): self.result="" def startElement(self,name,attrs): if name=="login": self.result=attrs["result"] try: #Create SAX parser parser=xml.sax.make_parser() parser.setFeature(xml.sax.handler.feature_namespaces,0) lr=LoginResp() parser.setContentHandler(lr) #Get login response r=callapi([("action","login"), ("format","xml"), ("lgname",uname), ("lgpassword",passwd)], cookie_jar) #Parse login response to get tokens and see if login succeeded parser.parse(r) if lr.result!="Success": raise LoginFailedException("Authentication denied: "+lr.result) pass except xml.sax.SAXException,inst: raise LoginFailedException("Parse error in login response: " +inst.getMessage()) def getfeed(uname,passwd,feedformat): """Get Wikipedia watchlist feed uname: Wikipedia username passwd: Wikipedia password feedformat: format of the feed, must be 'rss' or 'atom' Returns a file-like object containing the feed """ jar=cookielib.CookieJar() wikiauth(uname,passwd,jar) return callapi([("action","feedwatchlist"), ("feedformat",feedformat)], jar) def do_fetch(argv): """Parse command-line arguments and fetch feed argv: list of command-line arguments Returns feed as a string Raises BadCmdException if arguments are not proper """ format="atom" if len(argv)==3: pass elif len(argv)==4: if (argv[3]=="rss" or argv[3]=="atom"): format=argv[3] else: raise BadCmdException() else: raise BadCmdException() try: r=getfeed(argv[1],argv[2],format) return r.read() except httplib.HTTPException,inst: raise RunTimeError("httplib Exception: "+str(inst)) except urllib2.URLError, inst: raise RunTimeError("urllib Exception: "+str(inst.reason)) #Main program if __name__=="__main__": try: print do_fetch(sys.argv) except BadCmdException: sys.stderr.write("%s\n"%usage) sys.exit(1) except LoginFailedException,inst: sys.stderr.write("Login failed: %s\n"%inst.message) sys.exit(2) except RunTimeError, inst: sys.stderr.write("Runtime error: %s\n"%inst.message) sys.exit(2)