The “wped” command line Wikipedia client has received an update. It now supports language selection and it has an alternative “wikt” command for Wiktionary. Formerly the tool was hard-coded to connect to “en.wikipedia.org”, but now both the language and domain can be chosen. This change was initiate by a community pull request and I love the way this works on Github.

The “wped” Wikipedia command

Below you see a sample usage of the “wped” command:

maurits@nuc:~$ wped wikipedia
                                 Search results

Wikipedia

   Wikipedia (/ˌwɪkᵻˈpiːdiə/ or /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/ WIK-i-PEE-dee-ə) is an
   Internet encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia
   Foundation.

Wikimedia Foundation

   Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American non-profit and charitable
   organization headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Wikimedia Commons

   Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is an online repository of free-use
   images, sound, and other media files.
maurits@nuc:~$ 

You can read a full article using the “-f” flag.

The “wikt” Wiktionary command

Below you see a sample usage of the “wikt” command:

maurits@nuc:~$ wikt -f command-line
                                  command line

English[edit]

  Noun[edit]

   command line ‎(plural command lines)

    1. A shell, a command line interface; usually used with the definite
       article.

                    I'm so used to the command line that I don't even know
                    how to find things in the GUI.
                    The command line offers a lot of helpful features, such
                    as tab completion and wildcard expansion.

    2. (computing) The text prompt presented to the user in a command line
       interface.

                    Type the following at the command line: du -s -h.

    3. A line of text that is entered at such a prompt.

                    Use the following command line to compile a file without
                    linking: gcc -c main.c -o main.o

    Translations[edit]

   text prompt

     * Chinese:                               * Japanese: コマンドライン
                                                ‎(komandorain)
               Mandarin: 命令行               * Persian: خط فرمان ‎(xatt-e
               ‎(mìnglìngháng)                  farmân)
                                              * Portuguese: linha de
     * Czech: příkazový řádek m, příkazová      comando f
       řádka f                                * Romanian: text de comandă,
     * Dutch: opdrachtregel c,                  linie de comandă (linie
       commandoregel (nl) c                     textuală de comandă)
     * French: ligne de commande (fr) f       * Russian: кома́ндная
     * German: Kommandozeile f,                 строка́ (ru) f ‎(komándnaja
       Befehlszeile f                           stroká)

              source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/command_line
maurits@nuc:~$ 

You can search for words by leaving out the “-f” flag.

Download

You find this free software on Github.