Function "enableSemantics"

Error screen shown due to a missing enableSemantics call in "LocalSettings.php"

enableSemantics should be added to the "LocalSettings.php" file to enable Semantic MediaWiki.

The use of enableSemantics has been enforced starting with Semantic MediaWiki 3.1.0Released on and compatible with MW 1.31.0 - 1.33.x.1 to avoid issues and misuse of MediaWiki's extension registration mechanism by erroneously adding wfLoadExtension( 'SemanticMediaWiki' ) to "LocalSettings.php".

Usage

Using enableSemantics ensures that:

• A URI related namespace is setup for the RDF export and the SPARQLStore replication process
• Namespace constants (e.g. SMW_NS_PROPERTY) are accessible in the "LocalSettings.php" file when making changes to configuration parameters like configuration parameter $smwgNamespacesWithSemanticLinksDefines for which namespaces the semantic links and annotations are to be evaluated

If changes to the configuration parameter $smwgNamespaceIndexSets the index of the first namespace to be used by Semantic MediaWiki are necessary, please follow the instructions in connection with enableSemantics.2

It is strongly recommended to not change the setting of this function after the initial setup of the wiki, not even if you switch from "http://" to "https://" or to a completely different domain like e.g. <example.org> to <beispiel.de>. The reason is that the URI from configuration parameter $smwgNamespaceSets the namespace of exported URIs is used as an identifier of the wiki that should not change. A change would turn the respective URI into a different entity which in fact it is not.34

Parameters

The function defines the following parameters:

• The first parameter represents the URI-namespace
• The second parameter indicates whether the URI namespace is completed or not

Examples

Domain identifier

enableSemantics( 'https://example.org/id/', true );

Alternatively a setting like the following is possible:

enableSemantics( 'example.org/id/' );

Empty identifier

For a local installation where no domain is available (or necessary), enableSemantics can be used simply with:

enableSemantics();

See also

• Help page on importing vocabulary
• Help page on pretty URIs