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How can I add taxonomy terms programatically into Drupal via an CSV file?

Let me start off by saying I'm a total noob when it comes to PHP and Drupal. I'm being tasked with the migration of legacy content off a proprietary CMS and into Drupal 6, but the powers that be do not want to install any of the helper modules that exist for migrating content into drupal (e.g. Migrate module, Features module ,Node_Import module, etc..). I suspect that they're trying to keep the Drupal system as lean as possible.

We have a three tier development environment where the drupal installation is moved from development to staging and finally to production, I only have read access to the database so it's not like and can just go and manipulate the drupal file system or database directly. According to my colleagues I should perform the migrations programtically by using a combination of CSV files and HOOK_UPDATE_N functions but they didn't provide me with any further instructions. As I understood it, once the hook_updates are added to the ".install" file, they can run the "update.php" file and everything will be added precisely the same in all of the three development environments.
My project involves:
- adding the taxonomy terms programatically
- adding the new content type programatically
- migrating the legacy content into the new content type programatically

For the moment I would be very happy if I could just add the taxonomy terms programatically. I would think that once I do that I can extrapolate that experience to accomplish the other two tasks. If anyone can point me to an example or provide suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

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Hagay Mandel

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xamian

ASKER

Since I'm still pretty new to PHP sometimes I'll get confused between what's a normal php function and other functions that are drupal specific. Should I be using HOOK_UPDATE_N like my colleagues suggest? Don't I need to used druapls UPDATE_SQL functions, or can I just use normal PHP?

Hagay Mandel

Use Drupal's db_query, for example:

$sql = 'INSERT INTO `term_data` (`tid`, `vid`, `name`, `description` , `weight` ) VALUES (\'A\', \'B\', \'C\', \'D\' , \'E\');';
$results = d($sql);

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where A,B,C,D,E are the values from your file.

Hagay Mandel

Sorry:

$sql = 'INSERT INTO `term_data` (`tid`, `vid`, `name`, `description` , `weight` ) VALUES (\'A\', \'B\', \'C\', \'D\' , \'E\');';
$results = db_query($sql);

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xamian

ASKER

OK, a few more questions. I'm going to have to loop through the CSV file to insert the taxonomies. Can I use standard PHP syntax to read and loop through the CSV file, or do I have to use some special Drupal function to do that? And where should I put the CSV file so it can be read once this is moved to the other development environments?
Also, can I wrap this all in a HOOK_UPDATE function? My colleagues told me I'm supposed to do something like this: (see code sample)
Does this make any sense?

/**
 * Update to add indexes for all join, where and order by statements
 */
function MyCustomModule_update_6003() {
  $ret = array();
  
  db_change_field($ret, 'content_field_location', 'field_location_value', 'field_location_value', array('type' => 'int', 'size' => 'medium', 'not null' => FALSE, 'default' => NULL));
  
  return $ret;
}

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Hagay Mandel

You can use standard php for the file reading.
I don't think you need to use the HOOK_UPDATE; this hook is for updating related tables, when a node is updated. see http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/developer--hooks--node.php/function/hook_update/6.