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I'm looking to migrate an existing site to Drupal. I have a a content type on the new Drupal site that will eventually hold some 1500 nodes. Of course, I don't want to enter each one in the form on the admin side; I'd like to input them programmatically, from a script.

What I'm wondering is if I can do plain old SQL INSERTS into the node and related tables, and have my nodes ready to use. Assuming I do the inserts correctly, will the nodes just be there when I fire up Drupal? Or will I need to touch some other parts of the site?

Or is there another way, like a module for batch importing?

This is for Drupal 7.

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2 Answers 2

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There are two routes you can take.

One uses the Migrate module usually in conjunction with Table Wizard. This gives you a web front end for doing an import with field mapping, and other nicities. EDIT: just saw that TW doesn't have a D7 version.

The other is a custom import script. The script does the Drupal bootstrap process, queries the remote database, creates a $node and then does a node_save. This is a little more complex, but not that hard.

I have been doing the later on new projects, and is easy to adapt to XML, CSV, or other data sources.

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  • Can you elaborate further on your method for doing the custom import script? I have an external database that I need to turn into Nodes, the only difference is that I also need to be able to run an "update" every now and then if the database changes. How does one make a module to query a remote db, create nodes, add menu items, etc?
    – oranges13
    Commented Aug 26, 2011 at 13:46
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    The script dpes the bootstrap process just like index.php or cron.php, then does the database connection and query. You then create nodes and do node_save(). Here is a start: acquia.com/blog/migrating-drupal-way-part-i-creating-node
    – mpdonadio ♦
    Commented Aug 27, 2011 at 0:09
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There is Node Export which would probably do and of course Feeds. I'd recommend using a module rather than plain SQL because of all the small things Drupal does when creating a node. It's just easier really.

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  • I'm not coming from another Drupal installation, but just a plain old LAMP website. Would Node Export help me?
    – user1359
    Commented Jun 8, 2011 at 20:53
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    Well then no, Node Export probably wouldn't work. Feeds however with Feeds XPath parser (drupal.org/project/feeds_xpathparser) would be what I would do.
    – Karl Jóhann
    Commented Jun 8, 2011 at 20:57

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