Okay, there is an issue using Node Import to import ShareASale datafeeds.

Either the datafeed itself or the import process makes characters like “&” come up as character codes. I have had the same issue before with xml files, but now is not the time to investigate, just to fix the issue.

My solution, though a little hacky, was to create a page in Drupal with the import format set to “php code” and then paste code to clean these characters.

The three tables to focus on are:

• term_data
• node
• node_revisions

Here is the code:

<?php
$deletes = array (
“&” => “&”,
“‘” => “\’”,
“>” => “>”);
foreach($deletes as $remove=>$replace){
$cleantagquery = “UPDATE {term_data} SET name=REPLACE(name,’$remove’,'$replace’)”;
db_query($cleantagquery);
$cleantitlequery = “UPDATE {node} SET title=REPLACE(title,’$remove’,'$replace’) WHERE type = ‘store’”;
db_query($cleantitlequery);
$cleanrevtitlequery = “UPDATE {node_revisions} SET title=REPLACE(title,’$remove’,'$replace’)”;
db_query($cleanrevtitlequery);
$cleanrevbodyquery = “UPDATE {node_revisions} SET body=REPLACE(body,’$remove’,'$replace’)”;
db_query($cleanrevbodyquery);
}
if(mysql_error()){
echo mysql_error();
}else{
echo “Done!”;
}

?>

Of course, WordPress just changed the character entities back to the character, but you get the idea.

I finally cracked this code. Well, almost. I still have to create a template for the new nodes. I still have to clean up the taxonomy a little. Hopefully, I find a little tool for that, because yesterday I imported over 1000 products in less than five minutes.

Using a highly underpriced piece of software called Macro Express, I wrote a script that downloads datafeeds from from the ShareaSale ftp site and then breaks them into uploadable sized chunks.

The Drupal part of the process is still manual though. I am playing with the iOpus iMacros Firefox extension, but haven’t quite got it down yet. It’s a great extension. I have used it for other internet macros before.

Necessary Drupal Extensions:

CCK

Content Templates

Node Import

I think that’s all for now. I will get more detailed on how to pull the whole thing off later, but if you’ve played with Drupal for a little while, you should be able to play with those modules and figure out how to do it before I get back to writing the second part of this post.