[support] Integrating a large, given Database into Drupal

[Gregg Marshall]

Basti

Assuming the existing database is compatible with Drupal (e.g. MySQL or
Postgres, etc), it is relatively straightforward to expose another table to
Drupal through hook_views_data.

Your other option is to create a new content type that adds all the various
metadata fields and then use the Migrate module to convert from the old
database into Drupal content.

While 300,000 nodes is a good size, drupal.org has several times that many
nodes.

Gregg Marshall, CPMR, CSP, CMC

-----Original Message-----
From: support-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces at drupal.org] On
Behalf Of Bastiaan Zapf
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 11:23 AM
To: support at drupal.org
Subject: [support] Integrating a large, given Database into Drupal



Hello, I'm new on this list. I've got a question about Drupal.

There is a large, existing database of documents (about 300.000 right at the
moment, but other databases of comparable dimension might be added).
This database is to be "integrated" into drupal somehow, so that Users could
comment on documents, add new ones, rate them etc.

The database contains not only document data, but also a wealth of metadata
(hierarchical and causal relations, timestamps, versioning, authorship
information, several distinct categories of documents - and some more).

While this all sounds a lot like Drupal nodes already, i fear that just
converting every document to a node would lose some of the metainformation
and possibly break some features of drupal due to sheer number of documents.

Would it be possible to have Drupal access that database directly instead of
"nodes"? That way we'd probably save a lot of hassle.

Would that be possible using a module?


Any help appreciated,

    Basti
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