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Bulk User Creation Script?

Author Message

John Dalton

Wednesday 23 June 2004 6:18:18 am

Hi guys,

I need to create a large number of users within an EZPublish site, using predefined values.

This seems an obvious candidate for scripting. Can anyone give me a rough idea as to where I'd start with this? I guess I'll need to initialise the EZPublish environment, then create new User content objects inside a loop.

This doesn't sound like it should be too hard, but never having written a script which interfaces with EZPublish I'd appreciate some pointers from anyone who's been there before.

John Dalton

John Dalton

Wednesday 23 June 2004 9:53:48 pm

I had assumed that trying to create a user directly in the database would be a nightmare, which is why I thought I'd have more luck doing it from within ezpublish.

3.4.0 includes a script called ezexec.php (in bin/php/) which is only mentioned twice in the documentation that I can find - once in the changelog and once on a page which basically says not much more than "it's included" ;)

It appears to be a minimal implentation of the instructions here:
http://ez.no/ez_publish/documentation/development/scripting/script_classes

That information is a nice start, but what I need to do after that is actually create and store a new content object (user).

The documentation on this page looks like another piece of the puzzle, i.e. how to get values into the attributes of existing content objects:
http://ez.no/ez_publish/documentation/development/importing_attribute_data

However the info on that page is discouraging to say the least. Take this quote for example:

"The problem is that the kernel code is not consistent in importing data. Each datatype has a function storeObjectAttribute(), but in most cases it does not do anything, and the actual storing is done in a different function. Also, often the values to be stored are extracted from the http post variables."

It also gives a url for some example code which is behind a password protected webpage. Arrgh.

Has anyone done anything similar to what I'm trying to do? I hate the thought of trying to shove stuff directly into the database without decent documentation, and using the EZPublish API directly would seem to be the most sensible approach.

John