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There are tools for downloading the entire wikipedia database (above 8 Gb without pictures), but I would like to download only physics and maths pages, to view them offline. Wikipedia pages have a tree structure in categories, so it should be possible.

Please see here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#section_1
"To download a subset of the database in XML format, such as a specific category or a list of articles see(...)" and a link to some other page from which, after many efforts, I could surely get what I want. I am just wondering if anyone has already done it and can save me/us the effort with a few "how to" guidelines.

I know wikipedia seems for many of you not much an orthodox source, but it is usually an excellent introduction to areas that are not in your main line of research/study. I miss it very often while commuting.

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You want to download all the wiki pages?! It seems improbable that you'd ever need a reference of all the wikipedia pages on physics and math. Much better would be to look at the articles that interest you and then download them. But that's just my opinionated suggestion. :) – Kitchi Nov 12 '12 at 11:49
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@Kitchi: Doesn't your suggestion imply you know upfront what you're going to look up? – Nick Kidman Nov 12 '12 at 12:27
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It is not clear to me that this is on-topic. If you have a list of the pages it probably belongs on Super User (if you are looking for an existing app) or Stack Overflow (if you want to code it yourself). There doesn't seem to be a site to ask about identifying such pages (not webapps, nor webmasters): I'd start by looking at the code of some sample pages to see if wikipedia attaches some indexing data that you could take advantage of. – dmckee♦ Nov 12 '12 at 15:58
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I have rewritten the question. Please consider that it is essentially a bibliography question, before closing it (actually, it deals on how to get a huge general math and physics book in your portable device). Thanks. – Eduardo Guerras Valera Nov 12 '12 at 18:54
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closed as off topic by Qmechanic♦, David Zaslavsky♦ Nov 14 '12 at 6:32

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1 Answer

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To get a list of all physics and math articles on Wikipedia, you could run CatScan on Category:WikiProject Physics articles and Category:WikiProject Mathematics articles, like this.

Note that a lot of the pages returned by CatScan will be article talk pages, since that's where the WikiProject templates normally go. Depending on the output format you choose, you may need to postprocess the list to remove the Talk: prefix from page titles.

You can then use Special:Export to download the actual articles.

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As a matter of interest, how heavy is the whole thing? (i.e. all the maths+physics pages) – Emilio Pisanty Nov 12 '12 at 19:14
Hard to say. The total article count I get from my query is a bit under 26,000. Assuming an average of 4 kB per article (which is close to the average for the whole Wikipedia, although I suspect that physics and math articles may be longer than average due to having fewer very short stubs), that would imply a BOTE estimated total size of around 100 MB. Note that that figure doesn't include any images; including them would most likely increase it by at least an order of magnitude. – Ilmari Karonen Nov 12 '12 at 19:24

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