Database Help

D

DaEvAnAm

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Hi,

I currently have a website up and running with a large database that includes customer details and their login details including password. I want to now expand my website to include a forum but i want to use those exact details from my current website on my forum site. I.E. They can use their login on the current website to login to the forum and post without creating a new account, hence eliminating data redundancy and so on.

Any ideas on how to integrate the 2?

Thanks alot.
 
is the forum going to run under the same domain?

are you going to develop the forum yourself, or are you going to use a pre-built app like phpbb, drupal or wordpress?
 
i would use data repliction between the two db.users tables. both directions

you will have to alter your site's users table to match that of the app's users table.

data replication is setup and managed by the dbms.
 
How many "features" do you want from the forum app? phpBB is a bit of a mess (last time I checked). Maybe a simpler solution like myBB? May be simpler to bridge.
 
If the 2 DB's are not compatible, you can always write a script to transfer everything across. Or, if you are not a developer, you can hire me to write the script for you :)

But it depends on how many users you have already.
 
The current database is pretty huge. I dont want the forum to be outrageously elaborate. Just a simple, easy to use, quick, informative forum.
 
If you can't edit the code in the forum to look into your current database, then you are going to have to do as suggested above and write a script to push those details into the forum db (which really shouldn't be hard). Bear in mind that u'd need to update those login details when they change in the main app as well.

Shouldn't take long for a dev to write up.
 
I would do the following:
1. Use same DB for both site and forum.
2. Add prefix to tables of forum so that it does not overwrite your sites tables (most forums/cms's support this)
3. Write script to get usernames from both user tables, do a diff on it, and then sync that difference to either the site, or forum user table. I would only sync the common fields between the two tables.
4. Schedule script to run every 10 minutes.

If possible, it would be better to make use of your current user table, as was suggested before. It will save you a lot of effort.
 
All the above mentioned approaches could work, but I would advise you on hiring a professional developer to, firstly assess the current deployment, as it is easy to write a script etc. to bridge the gap, but it’s not necessary the correct way of doing it, considering your site’s growth potential etc.

The easy and cheap fix could end up costing you a lot of money further down the line.
 
<?php?> said:
The easy and cheap fix could end up costing you a lot of money further down the line.
Click to expand...

That is an important point.

I think we should be able to help more, if we knew the layout of the two schemas, or even better the two applications (CMS, if used, and forum).
 
Well the current site is an OSCommerce's site and i'm not sure what i will be using for the forum site yet. Any suggestions?
 
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