@Earnie: Take a look at the FeedAPI SoC project, it includes pluggable XML parsing and node creation hooks.<br>
<br>@Larry-<br><br>My preference here is the old 'lazy instantiation' trick. [1]<br><br>Import the data and write a callback that will present the table view of courses, etc. You're dealing with structured data, so your callbacks shouldl make it easy for people to browse the data (think MVC).
<br><br>Keep a {data_node} lookup table.<br><br>When writing links for individual items, check the {data_node} table. If found, write the link to node/NID, otherwise, write it to a node-generating callback that also inserts a record into {data_node}.
<br><br>This way, you only create nodes when your users want to interact with them. Saves lots of processing overhead.<br><br>I have some sample code if you need it.<br><br>One drawback: if you want the data to be searchable, you either have to initiate your own hook_search, or wait for the nodes to be created.
<br><br><br>- Ken<br><br>[1] <a href="http://barcelona2007.drupalcon.org/node/58">http://barcelona2007.drupalcon.org/node/58</a><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 8/28/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Earnie Boyd
</b> <<a href="mailto:earnie@users.sourceforge.net">earnie@users.sourceforge.net</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><br>Quoting Larry Garfield <<a href="mailto:larry@garfieldtech.com">larry@garfieldtech.com</a>>:<br><br>><br>> So, I toss the brain-teaser out there: Is there a good way to have my nodes<br>> and import them too, or are these cases where nodes are simply the wrong tool
<br>> and the direct-import-and-cache mechanisms described above are the optimal<br>> solutions?<br>><br><br>Not that I've found and I've spent several hours recently researching<br>this. Chris Mellor and I have begun collaborating on this issue here
<br><a href="http://portallink.linkmatics.com/gdf">http://portallink.linkmatics.com/gdf</a> and have development staging here<br><a href="http://datafeed.progw.org">http://datafeed.progw.org</a>. Help is welcome, we want to be able to feed
<br>all types of external data. Goals are being established and documented<br>on the <a href="http://portallink.linkmatics.com/gdf">http://portallink.linkmatics.com/gdf</a> pages. *Note* we are aware<br>of all the existing modules and API and our plans are to use the
<br>existing things as well as create what is missing.<br><br>I've found <a href="http://drupal.org/project/feedparser">http://drupal.org/project/feedparser</a> which will accept RSS,<br>RDF or ATOM feeds and create nodes or aggregated lists. I am
<br>successfully using that module with a change documented in issue<br><a href="http://drupal.org/node/169865">http://drupal.org/node/169865</a> at <a href="http://give-me-an-offer.com">http://give-me-an-offer.com</a>.<br>
<br>Earnie<br></blockquote></div><br>