This directory holds files used to generate the history database data.db.
# Database Tables
- `events`
Format:
`id INT PRIMARY KEY, title TEXT UNIQUE, start INT, start_upper INT, end INT, end_upper INT, fmt INT, ctg TEXT`
Each row has an ID, Wikipedia title, start and end dates, and an event category.
- `start*` and `end*` specify start and end dates.
`start_upper`, `end`, and `end_upper`, are optional.
If `start_upper` is present, it and `start` denote an uncertain range of start times.
Similarly for 'end' and 'end_upper'.
- `fmt` indicates format info for `start`, `start_upper`, `end`, and `end_upper`.
- If 1, they denote a Julian date number.
This allows simple comparison of events with day-level precision, but only goes back to 4713 BCE.
- If 2, same as 1, but dates are preferably displayed using the Gregorian calendar, not the Julian calendar.
For example, William Shakespeare's birth appears 'preferably Julian', but Samuel Johnson's does not.
- If 3, same as 1, but 'end' and 'end_upper' are 'preferably Gregorian'.
For example, Galileo Galilei's birth date appears 'preferably Julian', but his death date does not.
- If 0, they denote a number of years CE (if positive) or BCE (if negative).
- `pop`:
Format: `id INT PRIMARY KEY, pop INT`
Associates each event with a popularity measure (currently an average monthly viewcount)
- `images`:
Format: `id INT PRIMARY KEY, url TEXT, license TEXT, artist TEXT, credit TEXT`
Holds metadata for available images
- `event_imgs`:
Format: `id INT PRIMARY KEY, img_id INT`
Assocates events with images
- `descs`:
Format: `id INT PRIMARY KEY, wiki_id INT, desc TEXT`
Associates an event's enwiki title with a short description.
- `dist`:
Format: `scale INT, unit INT, count INT, PRIMARY KEY (scale, unit)`
Maps scale units to event counts.
- `event_disp`:
Format: `id INT, scale INT, PRIMARY KEY (id, scale)`
Maps events to scales they are 'displayable' on (used to make displayed events more uniform across time).
# Generating the Database
## Environment
Some of the scripts use third-party packages:
- `indexed_bzip2`: For parallelised bzip2 processing
- `mwxml`, `mwparserfromhell`: For parsing Wikipedia dumps
- `requests`: For downloading data
- `Pillow`: For image processing
## Generate Event Data
1. Obtain a Wikidata JSON dump in wikidata/, as specified in it's README.
1. Run `gen_events_data.py`, which creates `data.db`, and adds the `events` table.
## Generate Popularity Data
1. Obtain 'page view files' in enwiki/, as specified in it's README.
1. Run `gen_pop_data.py`, which adds the `pop` table, using data in enwiki/ and the `events` table.
## Generate Image Data and Popularity Data
1. In enwiki/, run `gen_img_data.py` which looks at pages in the dump that match entries in `events`,
looks for infobox image names, and stores them in an image database.
Uses popularity data in enwiki/ to find the top N events in each event category.
1. In enwiki/, run `download_img_license_info.py`, which downloads licensing info for found
images, and adds them to the image database.
1. In enwiki/, run `download_imgs.py`, which downloads images into enwiki/imgs/.
1. Run `gen_imgs.py`, which creates resized/cropped images in img/, from images in enwiki/imgs/.
Adds the `imgs` and `event_imgs` tables.
The outputs will likely need additional manual changes:
- An input image might have no output produced, possibly due to
data incompatibilities, memory limits, etc.
- An input x.gif might produce x-1.jpg, x-2.jpg, etc, instead of x.jpg.
## Generate Description Data
1. Obtain an enwiki dump in enwiki/, as specified in the README.
1. In enwiki/, run `gen_dump_index.db.py`, which generates a database for indexing the dump.
1. In enwiki/, run `gen_desc_data.py`, which extracts page descriptions into a database.
1. Run `gen_desc_data.py`, which adds the `descs` table, using data in enwiki/,
and the `events` and `images` tables (only adds descriptions for events with images).
## Optionally Add Extra Event Data
1. Additional events can be described in `picked/events.json`, with images for them put
in `picked` (see the README for details).
1. Can run `gen_picked_data.py` to add those described events to the database.
## Remove Events Without Images/Descs
1. Run `reduce_event_data.py` to remove data for events that have no image/description.
## Generate Distribution and Displayability Data
1. Run `gen_disp_data.py`, which add the `dist` and `event_disp` tables.