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<meta name="description" content="Demo to fetch a random extract of text from Wikipedia" />
<!DOCTYPE html>
<HTML><BODY>
​
  <p><textarea id="textbox" style="width:350px; height:150px"></textarea></p>
  <p><button type="button" id="button" onclick="startFetch(100, 500)">
    Fetch random Wikipedia extract</button></p>
  
  <script type="text/javascript">
    
    var textbox = document.getElementById("textbox");
    var button = document.getElementById("button");
    var tempscript = null, minchars, maxchars, attempts;
    
    function startFetch(minimumCharacters, maximumCharacters, isRetry) {
      if (tempscript) return; // a fetch is already in progress
      if (!isRetry) {
        attempts = 0;
        minchars = minimumCharacters; // save params in case retry needed
        maxchars = maximumCharacters;
        button.disabled = true;
        button.style.cursor = "wait";
      }
      tempscript = document.createElement("script");
      tempscript.type = "text/javascript";
      tempscript.id = "tempscript";
      tempscript.src = "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php"
        + "?action=query&generator=random&prop=extracts"
        + "&exchars="+maxchars+"&format=json&callback=onFetchComplete&requestid="
        + Math.floor(Math.random()*999999).toString();
      document.body.appendChild(tempscript);
      // onFetchComplete invoked when finished
    }
    
    function onFetchComplete(data) {
      document.body.removeChild(tempscript);
      tempscript = null
      var s = getFirstProp(data.query.pages).extract;
      s = htmlDecode(stripTags(s));
      if (s.length > minchars || attempts++ > 5) {
        textbox.value = s;
        button.disabled = false;
        button.style.cursor = "auto";
      } else {
        startFetch(0, 0, true); // retry
      }
    }
    
    function getFirstProp(obj) {
      for (var i in obj) return obj[i];
    }
    
    // This next bit borrowed from Prototype / hacked together
    // You may want to replace with something more robust
    function stripTags(s) {
      return s.replace(/<\w+(\s+("[^"]*"|'[^']*'|[^>])+)?>|<\/\w+>/gi, "");
    }
    function htmlDecode(input){
      var e = document.createElement("div");
      e.innerHTML = input;
      return e.childNodes.length === 0 ? "" : e.childNodes[0].nodeValue;
    }
    
  </script>
    
</BODY></HTML>
​
 
​
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