importing data into ZenCart

computing: software: ZenCart: importing data

Overview
ZenCart, as of this writing, has no facility for importing business data for other applications. Due to ZenCart's open source nature, however, it is not difficult to write such a routine and add it to the menu of available functions in the Administration section. The necessary particulars are not very well documented yet, so this page will be a collection point for that information.

Patches
Some features are still stubbed, but you can bulk-upload images and then assign or delete them individually. Some functions use wiki access, which can be replaced with hard-coded HTML (need to document this).

custom_dhtml.php
<?php /* 2006-09-17 (wzl) custom menu loader based on reports.dhtml and others
 * new file: /admin/includes/boxes/custom_dhtml.php

REQUIRES: admin/custom_menu.php single-line modification to admin/includes/header_navigation.php if (!defined('IS_ADMIN_FLAG')) { die('Illegal Access'); }

define('CUSTOM_MENU_MODULE', 'custom_menu'); define('CUSTOM_MODULE_SET_PROD_ENTRY','bulk_prod_entry'); define('CUSTOM_MODULE_SET_BULK_UPLOAD','bulk_img_upload'); define('CUSTOM_MODULE_SET_BULK_ASSIGN','bulk_img_assign');

$za_contents = array; $za_heading = array; // 2006-09-17 (Wzl) this could ultimately use language defines, but for now I am hard-coding the text $za_heading = array('text' => 'Jubilee Custom Functions', 'link' => zen_href_link(CUSTOM_MENU_MODULE, '', 'NONSSL')); $za_contents[] = array('text' => 'Bulk product entry', 'link' => zen_href_link(CUSTOM_MENU_MODULE, 'set=bulk_prod_entry', 'NONSSL')); $za_contents[] = array('text' => 'Bulk image upload', 'link' => zen_href_link(CUSTOM_MENU_MODULE, 'set=bulk_img_upload', 'NONSSL')); $za_contents[] = array('text' => 'Bulk image assign/delete', 'link' => zen_href_link(CUSTOM_MENU_MODULE, 'set=bulk_img_assign', 'NONSSL')); ?>

 "Jubilee Custom Functions" can be replaced by whatever text seems appropriate; "Jubilee" was part of the name of the store I was setting up, and I wanted to make it clear to the owner that this was the menu entry I had written for him.

custom_menu.php

 * new file: ZenCart data import - admin/custom_menu.php

header_navigation.php
// require(DIR_WS_BOXES . 'extras_dhtml.php'); require(DIR_WS_BOXES . 'custom_dhtml.php'); Removing extras_dhtml.php is optional; the store I was setting up had no use for it.
 * file edit: /admin/includes/header_navigation.php

new tables
So far, I haven't needed to use the new table names in more than one file; if I do, I'll need to move the defines from /admin/custom_menu.php to /includes/database_tables.php CREATE TABLE `custom_import_mfgrs` ( `id_mfgr` int(11) NOT NULL default '0' COMMENT 'manufacturers.id',  `import_alias` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '' COMMENT 'name used in import data' ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
 * new tables:

CREATE TABLE `custom_import_prod` ( `import_key` varchar(255) default NULL,  `prod_key` int(11) default NULL ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COMMENT='custom table for handling imported products';

CREATE TABLE `custom_uploads` ( `id` int(11) NOT NULL key auto_increment,  `id_admin` int(11) NOT NULL default '0' COMMENT 'who did the upload (admin.admin_id)',  `when_started` datetime default NULL COMMENT 'timestamp of when the upload started',  `when_finished` datetime default NULL COMMENT 'timestamp of when the upload finished; NULL means incomplete',  `filename` varchar(255) NOT NULL COMMENT 'name of archive (zipfile or tarball) being uploaded',  `comment` varchar(255) DEFAULT '' ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COMMENT='custom table for managing bulk file uploads';

CREATE TABLE `custom_upload_files` ( `id` int(11) NOT NULL key auto_increment,  `id_upload` int(11) NOT NULL COMMENT 'custom_uploads.id',  `filespec` varchar(255) NOT NULL COMMENT 'relative filespec of image file',  `size_x` int(11) DEFAULT NULL COMMENT 'pixel width of image',  `size_y` int(11) DEFAULT NULL COMMENT 'pixel height of image',  `id_prod` int(11) default NULL COMMENT 'products.products_id - product to which this image was assigned',  `when_deleted` datetime default NULL COMMENT 'if not null, this file has been deleted',  `who_deleted` int(11) default NULL COMMENT 'admin.admin_id of who did the deletion' ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COMMENT='detail table for custom_uploads: one record per file'

CREATE TABLE `custom_upload_thumbs` ( `id` int(11) NOT NULL key auto_increment,  `id_file`  int(11) NOT NULL COMMENT 'custom_upload_files.id',  `filename` varchar(255) NOT NULL COMMENT 'filename.ext inside thumbs folder; generally "id-geometry.ext"',  `size_x` int(11) DEFAULT NULL COMMENT 'pixel width of image',  `size_y` int(11) DEFAULT NULL COMMENT 'pixel height of image',  `request` varchar(255) NOT NULL COMMENT 'resizing request to match, for quick searching (id_upload + x + y)',  `when_made` datetime NOT NULL COMMENT 'when thumbnail was generated' ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COMMENT='record of thumbnails already created; used for thumbnail caching'; Note: a more ideal optimization would have a separate table for requests; this version will sometimes unnecessarily recreate thumbnail files, though at least it won't store more thumbnail files than necessary.

new folders
You will need to create the following folders and give them universal read/write permission (same as the images folder) in order for bulk uploads to work.
 * /images/bulk
 * /images/thumbs

Reference

 * ZenCart wiki: DB - Importing products