How can nodes be renumbered?

Why don´t you create a new custom content type with cck, including a date field? Haven't used the date field myself, but it seems to me that it can be used for that purpose.

Rather than use the actual node id, you could wrap it in a URL alias using the Path module in Core, so ../node/234 could also be accessed by something like ../article/YYYY/MM/DD/Article-ID. The Path auto (http://drupal.org/project/pathauto) module accepts tokens and makes this pretty easy. If the site is very large, the lookups of aliases will take some extra time.

I think you can solve the issue by changing the auto increment number from node table in the drupal database. You can start with the current number in production e.g. 21000. When you change the auto increment number drupal will start assigning the new node number from 21000,21001,21002 and so on.

For the old notes you could try this code in a node using which you can create several nodes in few seconds. You will ofcourse have the choice of assigning your own node ids.

    
// 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['nid'] = "YOURNODEIDGOESHERE";// THE MOst important thing according to your specs. You can specify the node id as you like. Put a loop for sequential addition or fill it manually.

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$mynode['status'] = 1;//stands for published=1 or unpublished=0 content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


// Not mentioning the node id will lead to a sequential auto generation whereas mentioning a static number will overwrite the old content each type you save the node over that number again!;




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

unset($mynode);

}

This is a pretty simple piece of code and comes with a lot of variations. Click this page for finding other methods of converting to drupal http://drupal.org/node/67887.

If this doesn't solve your problem then please reply.

Ali Hammad Raza
WordsValley