Brilliant!
Sometimes I amaze myself.
I decided yesterday that it was time once and for all to move the old blogs into the new blog system. I haven’t done this yet as it simply isn’t as easy as it may sound. The two systems use a completely different database structure and the new one is much more complex with a more robust security built in.
But in the end a database is a database and moving data from one to another is – no matter how complex – a matter of properly worded SQL commands. So, I wrote up some pseudo-code that described what I thought would have to happen to make it all work. I then started writing actual code that could accomplish this.
I’m only about 20% done with the blog-conversion code, but so far the code looks good and I’m confident it will work. I hope to have the conversion code complete by the end of the week. Once that’s done I’ll have to do a serious backup of the site before I risk running the code.
If all goes well all blogs will be within the same database system by the start of next week, and this is a good thing for several reasons. Firstly I want to add some new blog features such as TrackBack and an RSS feed for The Triad. It will also allow me to grant you, the DavidMeade.com users, some new abilities (such as editing your comments, or creating a “Favorites” list of blogs). It will allow me to remove several pages and several databases that simply wont be needed anymore. Also I’d like to be able to promote old blogs in the new system to give them a 2nd airing.
Anyway once all this is done, I plan to do some upgrades to the user system. Sometime in the near future I also need to see if I can fix the photo galleries … but that actually will indeed be quite difficult.
David Meade ... Indianapolis based vlogger, geek, rock star, ham radio operator, protector of innocents, defender of the weak, and role model to millions of children everywhere.
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David
25 Jan, 2005
150 lines of code later, I think I have a script written that will convert my old blogs and move them into the new system.
The code is a thing of beauty if you’re into that sort of thing. Still, there are any number of things that could go wrong so I’m scared to actually try it.
I’ll back up the site first, and probably put up a placeholder page while the conversion is taking place to ensure no incrimental changes to the database take place while the program is running.
This will probably happen on Wednesday, but perhpas not until the weekend depending on how things go as I review the code a few more times.
Wish me luck
David
25 Jan, 2005
well my blog conversion program just keeps getting better and better … it’s over 250 lines now.
What’s really scary is there is no real way to test the code before I run it, so I’m spending alot of extra time writing in some error checking routines.
The upgrade will be this weekend AT THE EARLIEST.
David
27 Jan, 2005
Well I made my first run at the upgrade today (you may have noticed the ‘maintenance page’ that was up for a while) … it didnt go quite as well as I had hoped.
I’ll keep you posted as to when attempt 2 will take place.
David
27 Jan, 2005
ok I have gone through the output from the blog conversion tool …
There were 8 distinct errors. I believe I have fixed 7 of them, and know how to fix the last one .. it will just take some time.
Stay tuned.
David
27 Jan, 2005
I think I’ve got it now … maintenance page will come back up shortly.
David
27 Jan, 2005
ok I’ve got the errors taken care of, but although the blog conversion tool ran without errors the results were not what I expected.
It seems there is more to phpBB’d thread/post/post_text structure than I expected … this will take some time to figure out so this project ahould no longer be considred “near term”
David
27 Jan, 2005
haha ok I found some more stuff that has to be altered to make this work. I’m still not going to give this a timeline, but I am actively searching for the solution.