This week I started looking at the conversion of some older osCommerce databases and moving to osCmax. I’m almost on top of the templating but need to look at getting live data into the system to work with the templates.

This post is not about that but about the bits of code that I’ve worked on to get my converter working.

Connecting to two databases

Stackoverflow came to my aid again! The post on PHP connecting to two databases seemed fine but I did not read completely the first (or second) time and only after doing a decent read realised that there was the additional parameter for a new connection. Setting that worked fine.

There was also interesting reading on the logic and best practice around opening and closing database connections.

Over at http://net.tutsplus.com/ there are some best practices for php and mysql coding.

Altering a column in a table

I picked up a script from EdmondsCommerce (nice play on eCommerce!) and the script worked fine. I then liked the concept of the script posted by Arnan in the comments to the post but that did not work. I also noted the comment to use ‘IF NOT EXISTS’ except that is only valid for tables not for columns, at least not in my reading.

Adding a new column in a table

Following on from the alter script I created a new function and modified Arnan’s code to work and dealt with some potential issues with columns existing or not. Which led me to……

Logging Whats Happening

Using ‘echo’ to the screen is the common debug process for PHP code. But in this case I am building something a bit more robust and potentially big once I get to grips with over 100 tables in the databases.

I think an interactive script presenting information to the screen is good but not as a long scrolling list. I’d prefer to see a screen that sits and presents the current processing. In addition I want a log file to report on all actions and a separate log for the data line items just in case.

So I am now on the hunt for error logging and reporting and a great start is this post about a Logging class from http://www.redips.net/php/write-to-log-file/ that I have left as is and it works a treat.

Next I will need to come back to progress indicators like http://valums.com/ajax-upload/ and maybe here http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/PHP-GD-Progress-Bar-Demo/779 or http://davidwalsh.name/progress-bar-animated-mootools. The issue with this is how to update client side the progress occurring server side during a database table pass that in theory is either 0% or 100% and no feedback in between without splitting the query into segments and passing a client-side update. Needs more thought.