Importing Databases into WordPress

CMS & WordPress
1

I have a series of database-driven websites, some of which are fairly big and complex. The biggest is a site focusing on living things. The main database table has over 50,000 rows for vertebrates alone. There are associated tables with common names and other data.

If there’s no matching article in the database for a particular page or taxon (e.g. MySite/Life/Polar_Bear), then brief text is displayed via a combination of PHP includes and database tables (e.g “Ursus maritimus (the polar bear) is a mammal in the bear family, Ursidae.”).

I recently installed WordPress and have been reading the documentation. However, I don’t yet understand how I’m going to handle something like this. I obviously can’t sit down and make 50,000 blog posts. Is there a way to import my original database table into WordPress so that all these pages instantly display? And would I then be able to use PHP includes and a database to display brief text on the pages?

If the answer’s yes, you don’t need to go into all the details; I’m sure it’s complex. But if someone could offer a brief explanation or offer some key words to help me Google for more info, it would be a big help.

I’m working with MAMP on a Mac, by the way.

Thanks.

2

Whew boy! not goin to be easy but maybe not impossible.

The first thing to do is to look at the WordPress tables and figure out how your existing data can fit into them, in particular the wp_posts table
http://codex.wordpress.org/Database_Description

3

Are you trying to migrate existing websites to wordpress? Or simply making a separate wordpress site and pulling data from another database but keeping the old sites up?

The reason I ask is that it seems a pity to throw away your data granularity. Also would it be better to embed part of the old site in your wordpress site on a single page with, maybe, jquery page select controls or do you really want them editable as individual wordpress pages. To be honest the thought of managing 50000 wordpress pages, even after they’re created, is a little scary to me.

4

Agreed, using WP for something like this seems more of a regression if anything.

If you would like to go the route of a CMS might I suggest Drupal. Drupal seems like it might be a good match for this. Though it is hard to say with such little information. Drupal has a very step learning curve but once you get over the hump it is a very powerful system. Especially true with [url=https://drupal.org/drupal-8.0]version 8 that will have a release candidate shortly.

5

Wow, amazing comments! To be honest, my initial experiences with WordPress and Drupal, combined with the knowledge that converting my existing websites to a CMS is probably going to take thirteen years just about convinced me to forget about CMS’s altogether. Then I think, “What choice do I have? The only way I can keep up with the competition is to get a CMS with all sorts of special features.”

But there are SO many hoops to jump through. For example, my URL’s are styled similar to Wikipedia: MySite/World/New_Mexico, whereas WordPress’ “pretty URL’s” look like this: MySite/world/new-mexico.

I wasn’t able to even install Drupal, but maybe I should give it another try. It looks unbelievably complex, yet I’m beginning to think it might be a little more flexible than WordPress. I still need to check out ExpressionEngine, too.

Thanks for the tips.