Invision conversion instructions

**cyr0n_k0r** · Fri 2 Jan '04, 10:10am

why? the latest version is 1.3.

**Steve Machol** · Fri 2 Jan '04, 11:04am

We have not updated the import script for 1.3 because the Devs are currently completely revamping the import scripts for vB3.

**welo** · Fri 2 Jan '04, 11:21am

Originally posted by cyr0n_k0r

why? the latest version is 1.3.

I know that. This doesn't mean there aren't still a bazillion 1.2 boards out there since 1.3 is barely a month old and most IPB users are well in the habit of waiting at least six months to update due to Invision being in the habit of requiring you to rebuild your skins every time the upgrade their script. I'll go back when I have time and perform a 1.3 > vB3 and see what secial considerations may apply, then adjust the document as necessary.

=============================================

Now, there is a serious import glitch I haven't yet found a workaround for, involving the way vB imports IPB quotes. If all a post contains is a quote box then the import works fine (aside from converting all the quoted text to bold like vB used to do, and I always hated).

However, while importing the stuff created by IPB's quoting system, where you get something like:

QUOTE (welo @ Dec 24 2003, 12:23 PM)
Quoted text goes here.

...everything gets screwed up and stuff like this gets rendered:

----------------------------------------------------------
</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Guest @ Dec 6 2003, 09:07 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Need appointments to lower telephone rates of prospects...
[/b][/quote]
While I'm at it, this brings up another issue I've been wanting to discuss...
----------------------------------------------------------

The difference between the page source and what's in the database is interesting:

Source: (separated into lines for clarity)
----------------------------------------------------------

Code:

<div>
&lt;!--QuoteBegin-Guest+Dec 6 2003, 09:07 PM--&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;<b>QUOTE</b> (Guest @ Dec 6 2003, 09:07 PM)&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td id='QUOTE'&gt;
&lt;!--QuoteEBegin--&gt; Need appointments to lower telephone rates of prospects...
[/b][/quote]

While I'm at it, this brings up another issue I've been wanting to discuss...<br />

----------------------------------------------------------

Data:
----------------------------------------------------------

Code:

<!--QuoteBegin-Guest+Dec 6 2003, 09:07 PM--></div><table border=\'0\' 
align=\'center\' width=\'95%\' cellpadding=\'3\' cellspacing=\'1\'><tr><td>
[b ]QUOTE[/b] (Guest @ Dec 6 2003, 09:07 PM) </td></tr><tr><td id=\'QUOTE\'>
<!--QuoteEBegin--> Need appointments to lower telephone rates of prospects... 
[/b][/quote]\nWhile I'm at it, this brings up another issue I've been wanting 
to discuss...\n\n

(the space in the [b ] tag is intentional to prevent vB from parsing it as bold)
----------------------------------------------------------

So depending on how you look at it, the problem is either that vB isn't parsing that opening <div> from the database, or IB had it screwed up to begin with. Either way, there must be a method of adjusting something to make it work - preferably a MySQL query that does a batch replace. If anyone comes up with a workaround before I do, I'm all ears

. I'd hate to see this glitch become transferred to the vB3 importers.

**daemon** · Fri 2 Jan '04, 11:59am

I converted from IPB two days ago.. had the same problem, and edited all of the posts manually using an application that simply queried like this:

PHP Code:


$posts = $DB_site->query_first( "SELECT `pagetext`, `postid` FROM `post` WHERE `pagetext` LIKE '%<!--QuoteBegin-%'" )

Sent the result to a text area, I pasted in

PHP Code:


[quote][b]

and then hit a butto and it set it.. very tedious, but it gets the job done.

**welo** · Fri 2 Jan '04, 5:07pm

Hmm, ok. So basically you resorted to manually force-adding quote and bold tags while 'ficing the info from whomever was being quoted? I think I'm probing for a more elegant solution since:

A) In fact I want to lose those [b] tags so vB will parse the quotes in the manner VB3 currently does.

B) There is still that unhandled <div> to contend with.

C) This doesn't address the issue of subimbedded quotes (injected by IPB with  comment tags).

D) I'm not particularly wild about going through 28000 posts one by one and fixing them when I have paid for a script that should do this already.

Anyway, we're looking into it. I'd sure like to inspire anyone who wants to convert from an IPB do it as easily as possible. From what I can see, they are vB's only real competition

.

I know you guys are busy sorting through bugs still, yet should anyone on the vB dev team have anything to offer here, I assure you I am listening. Hoping to have my live vB running around the 3rd week of January, and this issue is serious enough to prevent it.

**daemon** · Fri 2 Jan '04, 5:21pm

Yup... it's not elegant, but I'd rather have that than messed up tables... and, 28000 posts seems a little too many

I only had about 900 to do...

You may want to try looking at the import script and seeing if there's a way to modify it so it parses it... not sure how easy or hard this would be, though.

**welo** · Sat 3 Jan '04, 12:48am

Originally posted by daemon

Yup... it's not elegant, but I'd rather have that than messed up tables.

A valid point indeed. I am looking into a way to construct a mysql query that would do the same thing all at once, although the thing with just swapping quote and b tags is only part of the deal since there are so many other code fragments remaining in there (f.ex. closing table tags that are actually written by parts of the code unincluded in the actual data). Having to contend with the leftovers from 2.3.3 compounds the confusion a little bit.

Regardless, thanks for the suggestion.

===========================================
Incidentally, the page containing the instructions has been updated to reflect RC1.

**welo** · Sat 3 Jan '04, 9:58am

Fixed

. Someone form the German vB team PMed me and pointed me toward a couple of problem areas in the vb2x import script. Lines 46 and 47 need to be changed from:

PHP Code:


$post = preg_replace('#<!--QuoteBegin--([^"]*)\+-->([^"]*)<!--QuoteEBegin-->#siU', '[quote][[I]i[/I]]Originally posted by \\1[[I]/i[/I]]<br>[b]', $post);

$post = preg_replace('#<!--QuoteBegin--([^"]*)\+([^"]*)-->([^"]*)<!--QuoteEBegin-->#siU', '[quote][[I]i[/I]]Originally posted by \\1[[I]/i[/I]]@\\2<br>[b]', $post);

to:

PHP Code:


$post = preg_replace('#<!--QuoteBegin-{1,2}([^"]*)\+-->([^"]*)<!--QuoteEBegin-->#si', '[quote][[I]i[/I]]Originally posted by \\1[[I]/i[/I]]<br>', $post);

$post = preg_replace('#<!--QuoteBegin-{1,2}([^"]*)\+([^"]*)-->([^"]*)<!--QuoteEBegin-->#si', '[quote][[I]i[/I]]Originally posted by \\1@\\2[[I]/i[/I]]<br>', $post);

I also took the liberty of removing those infernal bold tags from quoted output too. Once everything is upgraded to VB3 everything works fine. I will adjust my documentation to reflect these adjustments to the bbimport_invib.php file momentarily.

**daemon** · Sat 3 Jan '04, 10:02am

That would have helped me a few days ago, and I wouldn't have had to stay up until 5 AM fixing quotes... oh well.. can't change the past, can we?

**TxDis** · Sat 3 Jan '04, 10:47am

I had this same problem when I converted several months ago. Not being technically adept myself and having a board with over 50,000 posts, I have just resigned myself to manually editing each post in each thread as I come across them. Thread by thread by thread....

Is there anything that can be done on this quote tag issue -- post-conversion from invision 1.2?

I should also add that this is the only problem I have ever had with vbulletin. Everything else has always worked great and performed exactly as expected.

**welo** · Sat 3 Jan '04, 11:18am

Something you might want to try is converting your VB back to IPB then reconverting it using the adjusted importer script (on a test board first, naturally). Using the instructions I wrote up (once I have them adjusted to reflect this change, anyway) it should only take you several hours. Might be worth a try. I notice Invision already has a VB3 importer.

One thing I forget to mention, is if you want to remove all the bold stuff there is one further line requiring adjustment. In line 45:

PHP Code:


$post = preg_replace('#<!--QuoteBegin-->([^"]*)<!--QuoteEBegin-->#siU', '[quote][b]', $post);

...all you have to do is remove the 'b' tag. Also, for XHTML compliance line 37:

PHP Code:


$post = preg_replace('#<img src=\'([^"]*)\' border=\'0\' alt=\'user posted image\'>#siU', '[img]\\1[/img]', $post);

Should change to:

PHP Code:


$post = preg_replace('#<img src=\'([^"]*)\' border=\'0\' alt=\'user posted image\'(\s/)?>#siU', '[img]\\1[/img]', $post);

(this was also pointed out to me by the guy from the German VB team; I forgot to mention it previously)

Daemon, heh - yep, live and learn. When I bought my vB license I scheduled two months to get everything moved over while tracking down stuff like this. It's easy to get impatient and cause a lot of work for yourself immediately and later while doing these types of conversions.

**welo** · Sat 3 Jan '04, 12:33pm

The conversion document has now been adjusted to reflect the adjustments to bbimport_invib.php for correct quote parsing. One thing I neglected to mention in the posts above, is that an adjustment to line 48 is also necessary to remove the [/b] tag.

**Pogo** · Sat 3 Jan '04, 1:12pm

TxDis There is something you can try. Attached is a little script which comes in handy every now and then. I think Mike Sullivan created it some time ago for Steve Machol regarding his UBB import.

Just upload this script to your main vB folder and run it. It searches in all posts for unconverted IPB quote code and changes it.

Please verify that your IPB quote code is similar to this:

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Guest @ Dec 6 2003, 09:07 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Need appointments to lower telephone rates of prospects...
[/b][/quote]While I'm at it, this brings up another issue I've been wanting to discuss...

MAKE A BACKUP BEFORE USING THIS SCRIPT!!!
If this script does anything wrong it gets harder to correct. So you need a backup to be able to go back. I am not responsible for any data loss. If you want to do it without an backup...it's your risk.

I am not sure if you can run into timeout problems because of your many posts. Than you have to do it in batches.

Attached Files

quotefix.php (842 Bytes, 44 views)

**welo** · Sun 4 Jan '04, 9:25am

In case nobody guessed this, it was Pogo who contacted me and pointed me in the right direction on this quoting issue

(I didn't mention him outright previously since he PMed me rather than posting here).

Anyway, just ran into another slight thing with the quoting conversion that needed handled. Apparently when someone has C&Ped something into IPB that contains double spaces after a period to start a new sentence, the   acutally gets imported into the VB3 db and naturally won't be parsed.

So basically I just ran a quick mysql query removing  s from the post table:

Code:

UPDATE vb3_post SET pagetext = REPLACE (pagetext,'&nbsp;','')

Naturally if you have something installed converting all your spaces to  s then you will create a headache with the reast of the db (don't laugh - some IPB people really do have hacks installed that do this). Otherwise I notice no adverse affects on the remaining data.

Invision conversion instructions

Invision conversion instructions

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