How to convert my site to Drupal CMS?

Ah! I remember those days when I had to convert my site to drupal. It was a nightmare. Especially due to lack of resources available on the matter. But you will be glad to know that it has paid off. Drupal is pure elegance. I'll now explain what I had to do with little code. Don't panic, the php below is pretty simple.

I had two choices i) completely drupify my old site using mysql only and no drupal application framework or ii) completely drupify my old site using drupal application's framework . I chose the second option since it made my life a lot easier, why you ask? Well, because there is a lot of drupal coding done for things that we would have to redo with the option i (its like reinventing the wheel).

I had a website with few content types like books,articles,forums,etc. The first thing I did was install drupal. I downloaded a module called cck (content construction/creation? kit). This module allowed me to develop content types with the field types of my choice e.g. a new content type I created was articles. I created a couple of fields with cck like first name author,last name author,timeline,etc.

Then I retrieved old values from my previous manually created database using mysql/php to drupal database using php/drupal api.

I opened a node from drupal and wrote this php code.

// over here you connect to your old database and retrieve the values like this till the end

	  while ($row= mysql_fetch_array($resultwithlimit)) {

	  $a1 = $row["YourTitlefield"];
	  $a2 = $row["firstnameauthor"];
	  $a3 = $row["lastnameauthor"];
	  $a4 = $row["otherfield42"];
	  $a5 = $row["themistfield"];
	  $a6 = $row["body"];
	  $a7 = $row["field2"];
	  $a8 = $row["wordsvalley"];
	  $a9 = $row["randomfield29"];



$mynode = array();

$mynode['title'] = "$a1";

$mynode['type'] = "yourcontenttype"; // all content types have names which are given at the time of the content type creation. visible at content types page when you drag your mouse over the list of content types

$mynode['name'] = "thenameoftheusersubmittingthepage";//not necessary

$mynode['body'] = "$a6"; // You can remove the body field from your content type if you want.

$mynode['status'] = 1;//stands for published=1 or unpublished=0 content

$mynode['uid'] = 121;//uid is user id, the user id 1 being the id of the one who makes first id after a drupal installation, uid 1 has all prvilleged, make sure your user id comes with all privileges,preferably use userid 1 to save yourself from the hassle.

$mynode['promote'] = 0; // promote =0 doesn't promote the content to the front page , whereas promote=1 promotes the content to the front page

$mynode['comment'] = '2'; // comment 0=off , comment 1=readonly, comment 2=allowed

$mynode['field_friendlytitle'] = array(array('value' => "$a4" ));// field_friendlytitle is the field I presumably created using cck for the content type. Notice how I am filling in the value for field_friendlytitle using array in an array. 

$mynode['field_firstnameauthor'] = array(array('value' => "$a2" ));
$mynode['field_lastnameauthor'] = array(array('value' => "$a3" ));
$mynode['field_fieldIcreatedwithcck'] = array(array( 'value' => "$a9"));
$mynode['field_fieldIcreatedwithcck1'] = array(array('value' => "$a8" ));
$mynode['field_fieldIcreatedwithcck2sjhdshjdj'] = array(array('value' => "$a7" ));

$mynode['format'] = '2'; // inputformat, format=0 means Filtered HTML,format=1 means PHP code , format=2 means Full HTML 


//You can also specify $mynode['nid'] followed by a number which will be the nid but I presume that it wont be of use to you at the moment. Not mentioning it will lead to a sequential auto generation whereas mentioning a static number will overwrite the old content each type you save the node!;




$mynode = node_submit($mynode);
node_save($mynode);

unset($mynode);

}

The two most important functions in this code are node_submit and node_save. You can view how they work at the drupal api website.
http://api.drupal.org/api/function/node_save/6,
http://api.drupal.org/api/function/node_submit

Ali Hammad Raza
WordsValley