json - Getting readable results from Wikidata

Question

Ok so I'm trying to get information from Wikidata about movies, take this movie for example: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24871

On the page the data is clearly displayed in a readable format, however when you trying to extract it via the API you get this: https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&ids=Q24871

Here is a section from it:

"P272": [
                {
                    "id": "q24871$4721C959-0FCF-49D4-9265-E4FAC217CB6E",
                    "mainsnak": {
                        "snaktype": "value",
                        "property": "P272",
                        "datatype": "wikibase-item",
                        "datavalue": {
                            "value": {
                                "entity-type": "item",
                                "numeric-id": 775450
                            },
                            "type": "wikibase-entityid"
                        }
                    },
                    "type": "statement",
                    "rank": "normal"
                },
                {
                    "id": "q24871$31777445-1068-4C38-9B4B-96362577C442",
                    "mainsnak": {
                        "snaktype": "value",
                        "property": "P272",
                        "datatype": "wikibase-item",
                        "datavalue": {
                            "value": {
                                "entity-type": "item",
                                "numeric-id": 3041294
                            },
                            "type": "wikibase-entityid"
                        }
                    },
                    "type": "statement",
                    "rank": "normal"
                },
                {
                    "id": "q24871$08009F7A-8E54-48C3-92D9-75DEF4CF3E8D",
                    "mainsnak": {
                        "snaktype": "value",
                        "property": "P272",
                        "datatype": "wikibase-item",
                        "datavalue": {
                            "value": {
                                "entity-type": "item",
                                "numeric-id": 646968
                            },
                            "type": "wikibase-entityid"
                        }
                    },
                    "type": "statement",
                    "rank": "normal"
                },
                {
                    "id": "q24871$CA53B5EB-1041-4701-A36E-7C348FAC984E",
                    "mainsnak": {
                        "snaktype": "value",
                        "property": "P272",
                        "datatype": "wikibase-item",
                        "datavalue": {
                            "value": {
                                "entity-type": "item",
                                "numeric-id": 434841
                            },
                            "type": "wikibase-entityid"
                        }
                    },
                    "type": "statement",
                    "rank": "normal",
                    "references": [
                        {
                            "hash": "50f57a3dbac4708ce4ae4a827c0afac7fcdb4a5c",
                            "snaks": {
                                "P143": [
                                    {
                                        "snaktype": "value",
                                        "property": "P143",
                                        "datatype": "wikibase-item",
                                        "datavalue": {
                                            "value": {
                                                "entity-type": "item",
                                                "numeric-id": 11920
                                            },
                                            "type": "wikibase-entityid"
                                        }
                                    }
                                ]
                            },
                            "snaks-order": [
                                "P143"
                            ]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ],

The problem is I'm not sure how to convert sections like that into readable text. I get the API is calling a link between a class and its properties using unique IDs but I'm still stuck.

Is this actually possible at present or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Answer 1

What you should be looking for are the numeric-ids in each statements and add a leading Q to recover your wikidata ids, which should result to ['Q775450', 'Q3041294', 'Q646968', 'Q434841', 'Q11920']

[update: you can now directly access the Q id at mainsnak.datavalue.value.id, instead of having to build it from the numeric-id]

This can be done using wikibase-sdk (a JS lib I developed) wbk.simplify.claims function

Once you got those ids, you just need to request entities labels using the wbgetentities API: https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&ids=Q775450|Q3041294|Q646968|Q434841|Q11920&format=json&props=labels

you can even get results for only some languages, using the languages parameter: https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&ids=Q775450|Q3041294|Q646968|Q434841|Q11920&format=json&props=labels&languages=en|de|fr