Jul
4
10

Import and Export

Asides

Marc asks about export in the next version of WordPress. It’s actually the very first item on the list because it got bumped from 1.5 because of time constraints. The main holdup has been WordPress supports rich data like custom fields and slugs, which users love, but it makes a lossless import and export a pain. Most other blog tools have a WordPress importer already simply because it’s a market leader, so don’t think the export will improve portability much, but it should make a nice way to backup and restore a WP blog.


10 Comments

  • Roy Schestowitz — July 5, 2005 @ 12:40 am

    It is wonderful to see export facilities realised, which demonstrate no ego among WP developers. This allow users to ‘dance’ between platforms.

    As regards “a nice way to backup and restore a WP blog”, isn’t it simpler to just connect to the same databases, dump mysql databases and restore them?

    Reply
  • Firas — July 5, 2005 @ 1:14 am

    Roy, dumping and importing mysql is a rather horrid experience for average users.

    Reply
  • Bret R. Zaun — July 5, 2005 @ 3:42 am

    Dumping and importing MySQL can be very easy if one uses their GUI tools instead of the command line interface.

    Reply
  • Firas — July 5, 2005 @ 5:04 am

    I don’t think so, Bret–that was kinda my point. phpmyadmin is no place for respectable people to find themselves. :p

    Reply
  • Recipher — July 5, 2005 @ 5:43 am

    Why not check out mySQL Administrator? Makes backups a breeze and it’s SO much faster to backup and restore!

    Reply
  • Michael Pate — July 5, 2005 @ 7:10 am

    There are times when I am working on a new theme or testing something on an alternate install and I think, what I really need now are a bunch of entries to see what this will look like. That is what this will work great for. Desiring the ability to export entries should not always be equated with desiring to leave a blogging platform.

    Reply
  • Matt — July 5, 2005 @ 2:18 pm

    Exactly. Even if someone does want to leave, it’s their data on their server! They shouldn’t be constrained in any way.

    Reply
  • Jeff Walden — July 5, 2005 @ 4:42 pm

    I assume when it says “XML import/export” we’re talking something compressed, right? .zip would be most portable, although I’m sure .tar.gz would work well if you’re looking for something that’s primarily useful internally.

    Additionally, this will include everything underneath wp-content/, right?

    Reply
  • Roy Schestowitz — July 5, 2005 @ 8:00 pm

    Why compress it and lead to complications? Anybody whose database exceeds 10 MB is serious about blogging and will probably have plenty of server space to play with.

    Reply
  • Mathias Bynens — July 7, 2005 @ 4:17 am

    For now, I’ll pimp my article on creating and restoring MySQL backups using the command line. :) That’s just SQL though, it will be very cool if the wp-content directory and all is also backed up via WordPress.

    Reply

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