Integration with vBulletin - Post Edit History Importer

What is this?

The Post Edit History Importer (PEHI) is just that; an importer script. For those of us who were using Surviver's Post Edit History (PEH) hack, we are now pleased to see this functionality included in the default vBulletin package with the introduction of 3.7.0.

However, the hack's and vBulletin's way of logging post edit histories are somewhat different. So, thus, the need for this importer script arose. In a nutshell, it will import your past edit histories into vBulletin's new system.

What, exactly, does it do?

This script is a seamless import of the edit histories from the PEH hack into vB's system.

There are several key differences between vB's system and the hack's, among which are:

• vB stores iconid edits, the hack didn't
• The hack stored edits by comparing them in each record, while vB instead stores the original post once and subsequently all edits in a separate record

This importer will correct any mishaps between the two systems; it will assign postedithistoryids in the exact same order as they would have been if vB had inserted them, it will store original posts in the same way that vB does, it will assign iconids to make up for the missing ones that the hack never logged, and many other things.

If you're truly interested in checking out everything this importer does to make it "vB standard," you can read the code. I've commented enough that it should be discernible.

Anticipated FAQ
Q: Can I use this importer if I already have edit histories in vB's new system?
A: Yes! This importer was designed to import everything seamlessly. After it is done organizing the old histories correctly, it will process new histories before clearing them altogether in order to rearrange them correctly. So, yes, you can.

Q: Which version(s) of the PEH hack is this importer intended for?
A: The importer has only be tested with PEH version 1.2.5. Since I haven't used the new beta version, I do not know the database structure and therefore this importer might not work on that version.

Q: How long does the importer take to do everything?
A: Not very long at all, I promise. But really, it depends on how many histories you have. Personally, I had 21,075 histories from the hack. After inserting the originals (14,033 of them), I ended up with 35,108 records total. How long did it take the importer to do all of that? 2 minutes.

(More to come later if need be...)

Using the importer
To use the importer, just download the .zip file attached, unzip it, and open the 'readme' file. Instructions are included there.

Afterward
After you've used the importer, feel free to post your stats here! I'd love to hear how it worked out for you.

Enjoy!

[Gray Matter]

Thanks for posting. Glad to see it worked out for you.

[Gray Matter]

In case anyone is wondering, I have just used this on my live board after an upgrade from 3.6.10 to 3.7.2 and it worked great!

• Edits Processed: 22,749
• Unique Posts Processed: 15,154
• Total Records Processed: 37,903
• Total Time to Run Import Script: 2.22 minutes
  • Step 1 - 0.07 minutes
  • Step 2 - 1.25 minutes
  • Step 3 - 0.20 minutes
  • Step 4 - 0.25 minutes
  • Step 5 - 0.07 minutes

[FD929]

Just wanted to say thanks and show credit. Marked as uninstalled, cleaning up my install page.

[brent_strong]

Any idea if this will work when converting PEH 1.2.5 to a database running vbulletin 4.0.2?

[Jackal von ?RF]

I noticed that you must set "$config['Database']['dbtype'] = 'mysql';" in your config.php. If you use mysqli then $db->query_read returns a mysqli resource and the script incorrectly tries to use it as a mysql resource, which results in "mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource" on line 116.

I received errors that the script was unable to set cookies because the headers were already sent. The problem might be because the script prints html before it includes global.php. A workaround was to open the forum front page once, so that the forum could set the cookies, and then get back to PEHI.

Otherwise the script worked nicely.