Pictures to general node import?

I want the migration to do the same as if you manually associated an image(s) with a node by uploading via the CCK image field (filefield - image). So I think you're saying that requires the hook to run the function of the imagefield module for each image.

Not being a seasoned developer, how would I accomplish that in 25 words or less? Is the code complex? Are their similar examples I could modify?

I have about 2,000 nodes and 10,000 images to import. I guess I'd expect it to be as turnkey as any other imported field, just that it's a bit more complex because of the myriad ways to associate images with nodes and because they are files not data.

So by "standard" feature I mean you tell migrate the image directory, first having named the files to match the item ID that already has a corresponding NID in the DB (or the NID itself in some cases). Then tell migrate which module you want to use to import the pictures (image field in my case) and click "go".

If you are creating the node by import from migrate at the same time as importing images, then the migrate module would have to know the key data to associate the image file name with. I think it's asking too much to import any kind of image metadata as well, such as captions.

Yup, that sounds about right, but not being a developer, it'll take a bit to digest that completely.

So, "hook_migrate_destination_prepare_node(&$node, $tblinfo, $row)" is part of the migrate module I assume?

Not sure why Dman objected to naming the pics with the NID, but I actually have another item ID that the pic names are based on that is unique to each item and each item has its own node, so I'd have to programmatically associate the two.

In step 6 then, I'd be calling some hook function from the file fields module to insert the images into the appropriate node, right?

Sounds like you aren't planning on incorporating something like this into the migrate module any time soon, but I would think it would be a common requirement for migrating data.

I don't need to do this right away as I can always get someone to do this manually for cheap money, but for future reference it's definitely something I want to do. Plus I'm sure there are a lot of people with similar requests.

Makes sense. I just wanted an easy way programmatically to get the pics where they belong. They were all originally named with proper semantic descriptions, but I thought I'd move that into the text fields that filefield image provides.

Just found this module that seems to do part of what I want. It creates one new node from a single image import. One feature request asked for multiple images per node, and I created one for importing multiple images into one existing node, with some kind of mapping strategy, like pics named for the nid, or building a mapping table.

http://drupalmodules.com/module/imagefield-import

I haven't got the time to try it right now, so I'll mark it fixed. If I have issues I'll reopen it.

Just noticed this post on importing images to filefield:

http://technosophos.com/content/simple-pattern-importing-images

EDIT: Another article on importing images:

http://www.appnovation.com/creating-nodes-programmatically-have-cck-imag...

EDIT: And yet another (using Migrate):

http://civicactions.com/blog/2009/oct/27/migrate_module_file_handling

I finally got around to testing this method but I'm stumped because Fileimport creates entries into the file table but there's no NID column.

This baffles me because the UI for Fileimport clearly indicates that it's associating the images with a particular node as selected in the auto-complete field.

How does Fileimport make the association between NID and FID? Is there another table I'm missing?

Assuming I can figure this out I would have two columns appropriately sorted by NID from the Fileimport table and the Imagefield table, and just paste in the NID sorted columns containing FID, etc, and then reimport the resulting spreadsheet into the Imagefield table.

UPDATE: Found it - it's the "upload" table in the DB. Now I'm thinking I can use the Table Wizard/Migrate modules to do the Imagefield association rather than manually with spreadsheets. I'll report back if this works. Barring that, you can do the spreadsheet trick but how to create the delta values for multiple images per node? Use an Excel macro? I have 2,000 nodes and 10,000 images to associate.

UPDATE2: Table Wizard didn't like that the upload table had two primary indexes - not sure what to do about that. Also not sure how to deal with multiple images --> one node. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about the TW/Migrate modules could weigh in here. If that gets sorted out I think it's just a matter of establishing a relationship between the two tables using Views and mapping the fields.

UPDATE3: Just ended up doing this manually with a spreadsheet. Export the upload and imagefield tables, sort all data in both tables by NID/VID and then insert the FID column into the imagefield table. I then wrote a simple formula to create the delta values. Took a little more manipulation to get the CSV values correct (empty fields for the last data field, for example). This is how the final imported data looks in a CSV file:

[vid], [nid], [delta], [field_pictures_fid], [field_pictures_list], [field_pictures_data]

First few rows of the CSV (one record, 4 images):

15634,15634,0,344,1,
15634,15634,1,345,1,
15634,15634,2,346,1,
15634,15634,3,347,1,

The trailing comma ensures that the last of the six fields is entered in the DB as "NULL". After resaving each node, the image data field will be correctly filled out with any text (alt text for example) you may have added.

Tedious work to be sure - sure wish I had the ability to write a proper module. The irony is most Drupal developers doing this sort of migration likely do have this ability but so far no one's contributed anything back. Also, this can tend to be a very specific task that doesn't lend itself to being handled by a generic module. At the least it would require a regex parser to gather info from the image file name so the module knew where to put it.

...Jeff