Using PHP, how do I get the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article with the MediaWiki API?

Question

How do I use PHP to get the first paragraph of any article from Wikipedia through their MediaWiki API?

I am open to all suggestions. Most probably CUR

Answer 1

You can use the API as so:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=parse&page=Stack_overflow&format=xml&prop=text§ion=0

This will return an xml file with structure:

  
    Text you wanted goes here
  

Note the variables: page=Article_Title_Goes_Here format=xml prop=text