Specific phpBB2 convert question?

[Jim Nayzium]

I have recently created a site from scratch. A full community based website. We utilized the existing table structure of our phpBB2 database for our user information site-wide.

We wanted to have ONE login for three sections. 1. The Mainsite 2. The forum and 3. the classifieds.

We used 68classifieds.com for our classifieds.

What I am hoping to do -- is find out how I would do the following things...

When I do want to make the switch over from phpBB to vBulletin, the import process of the threads and users I am sure will go just fine (based on this site's information)

However, what terrifies me is how I will manually have to change all my insert statements that presently call on table names like

phpBB_users and things like that....

In order to coordinate all three areas, we started with the forum registrations....

So I will have tons of information in these tables....

So when I bring the whole forum over to vBulletin...what will my table structure look like in phpMyAdmin?

Will it be as simple as finding the table name of vBull_users that corresponds to phpBB_users....and then just doing a site-wide search and replace?

So when our users use our custom registration page --- they will get inserted into the vBulleting database table instead of the phpBB database table?

Is this too complex to understand?

Picture this ---

In the backend of phpBB we have turned off all the mandatory options....
As well as classifieds backend....so nothing is mandatory...

Then our custom registration looks like this --

username -
password -
confirm PW -
email -
name -
city -
state -

and when they submit this form -- it hits classifieds and forums and our stuff....

so the login on our site then logs them into all three areas also...it is really really seamless...but took forever to develop!!!

But I anticipate now --- the site growing bigtime...and thus needing to migrate from phpBB to vBulletin....

so I am anticipating what will be necessary to convert the whole site over....

So long story short ---- (or longer )

what does the table structure in mySQL look like in VB vs PHPBB?

[Steve Machol]

Assuming you are using a standard phpBB database, the phpBB info will be imported into the corresponding vB tables and fields.

[Jim Nayzium]

Well, somewhere in my long post, the point got missed I think...or else I never clarified....

We are working from ONE database...we don't have MySQL 5 yet, so it made much more sense to be able to do everything with code from one database...

Anyway...we can export the whole table and pull the phpBB parts out I guess...

We have 101 tables....and only about a third are phpBB tables.

[Steve Machol]

If you can only have one database, then you can install vB to that database by specifying a unique table prefix for it.

[Jim Nayzium]

So I guess in a few weeks/months...I will have to do this ----

install vBulletin --- add those tables to my one database ---

export my phpBB database tables....reimport them into vBulletin in the new database -- with the new names --- then delete the phpBB tables after that??

What still is unclear is the actual table structure of the mySQL ---

Because I have tons and tons of pages that insert data into those tables that aren't part of the phpBB ... our user pages and review pages insert data into the user tables...

so I will have to revamp all my custom pages to insert that same information into the vBulletin tables....

so will it be easy to fix/and find the corresponding tables and names of the fields..??

[Steve Machol]

We do not have an example of the vB table structure available. What do you need to know exactly?

As for the import, our import script will import the phpBB data into the corresponding vB tables and fields. Sorry I didn't make that clear. You do not need to know the db structure at all.

[Jim Nayzium]

It really must be me that is being unclear.

We have thousands of lines of code --- over hundreds of pages in our site --- that run insert statements and update statements on the phpBB tables...

We will need to manually change all that, in order to re-link, the vBulletin tables to our 'home-site.'

Does that make sense?

I am not worried too much about the data from the posts and threads coming over just fine. I am more worried about how to coordinate our login and registration process with your database and tables.

It took us three weeks to break down teh phpBB stuff.

Now I am regretting not just going with vBulletin to begin with.

Does that make sense.

When our users register with our main site -- we also copy that username to phpBB and the password, and the email --- etc... so there are literally hundreds of places through out the site -- that aren't phpBB pages...but are our pages, that we update the phpBB fields nad recoreds with our own data...we just use the database, so the information is shareable with our different areas.

[ManagerJosh]

I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but something it doesn't look like that was taken into account was how vBulletin 3.6 encrypts user passwords.

I think vB uses md5(md5($password) . $salt) where as phpBB is just md5($password)

[Steve Machol]

You will have to rewrite youre custom scripts for vB. Integrating vBulletin with a non-vB member system would require a rather extensive modification of the code. Of course, we cannot provide official support for code modifications. What most people do is modify their current system to use the vB member system.

Either way the place for help with this would be over at the mod site: http://www.vbulletin.org

Once you register you can post in the Pre-Sales forum there.