Importing from unusual sources; migrating single installations into multisite networks.

1. Tricky Migrations
Stephanie Leary sillybean.net @sleary

2. Who am I?
• sillybean.net
• @sleary
• slideshare.net/
stephanieleary

3. I’ve imported from...
• Blogger • Joomla
• Movable Type • Drupal
• Textpattern • Twitter
• LiveJournal • Gallery2
• WordPress.com • Delicious
• CSV files • HTML files

4. HTML Import

8. Gallery2 Importer

13. Secrets of
Happy Importing

14. Preparation
• Back up
• Prepare to undo
• Import on development server
• Or turn on maintenance mode
• Turn off crossposting plugins
• Use absolute URLs for linked files

15. Plugins
• DB Backup
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
• Mass Page Remover
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mass-page-remover/
• WordPress Reset
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-reset/
• Maintenance Mode
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maintenance-mode/

16. WordPress export
• Posts, pages, comments, authors
• Uploads optional
• No settings
• No menus in 3.0 (fixed in 3.1)
• Category slug issues
• Custom post types and taxonomies

17. Uncommon imports
• Twitter
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-importer/
• Delicious
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/delicious-xml-importer/
• Gallery2
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gallery2-importer/
• HTML
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/import-html-pages/

18. Uncommon imports
• Joomla/Mambo
• 1.0 to WP 2.7x: http://tinyurl.com/joom2wp
• 1.5 to WP 3.0x: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
joomla-15-importer/
• Drupal
• 6.x to WP 2.7x: http://tinyurl.com/dru6wp2
• 5.x to WP 2.7x: http://tinyurl.com/dru5wp2
• CSV
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/csv-importer/

19. Custom imports
• Other MySQL-based CMSs
http://yoast.com/importing-from-another-mysql-into-wordpress/
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_insert_post/
1. Fetch data from old database
2. Build $post array
3. wp_insert_post ( $post );

20. while
($row = mysql_fetch_array($results,MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
$post = array();
$post[ 'post_status' ] = 'draft';
$post[ 'post_author' ] = $row[ 'user' ];
$post[ 'post_date' ] = $row[ 'date' ];
$post[ 'post_title' ] = $row[ 'title' ];
$post[ 'post_content' ] = $row[ 'content' ];
wp_insert_post( $post );
}

21. Writing an import plugin
• Import class
• class Gallery2_Import extends WP_Importer
• form: greet()
• get posts: get_posts()
• clean up & insert: process_posts()

22. After importing
• Search & Replace
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-and-replace/
• Redirection
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/
• Add Linked Images to Gallery
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-linked-images-
to-gallery-v01/

23. Single Install
↓
Network

24. Second verse...
• Back up
• Prepare to undo
• Migrate on development server

25. XML or MySQL?
• XML pros • MySQL pros
• simple • complete
• limited • complicated
• slug bug • merging users
• skipped users • manual edits

26. Moving databases
• export all tables except
users, usermeta
• change table prefixes
• change wp_userroles option
name to match new table prefix
• change wp_* fields in wp_usermeta
table to match prefix

27. Moving user tables
• Export users, usermeta
• or specific rows
• Manually change IDs
• Stab yourself in the eye with a fork
• http://sillybean.net/?p=6187

28. Compromise
• Use WordPress export to move
content and taxonomies
• Have it create or map new users
• Move only the wp_options table
by hand

29. Character sets
• define('DB_CHARSET', 'latin1');
• Try to convert the old db
• work with a copy!
• Alter the table
http://codesnippets.joyent.com/posts/show/306
• Export Latin1, import UTF-8
http://alexking.org/blog/2008/03/06/mysql-latin1-utf8-
conversion

30. After migrating
• Move static files
• Change upload file paths
http://yoursite.com/wp-content/
http://yoursite.com/files/
• options
• posts
• theme files

31. Combining .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^one.foo.com$ [NC]
Redirect /forms.html http://one.foo.com/forms/ [R=301,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^two.foo.com$ [NC]
Redirect /about.html http://two.foo.com/about/ [R=301,NC]
</IfModule>

32. ?

33. Thank you.
Stephanie Leary
sillybean.net
@sleary