Drupal to WordPress migration table mapping

Following on from Drupal to WordPress migration explained, this post documents the table mappings for a site migration from Drupal 6.x to WordPress 3.x.

To read the mapping, you look up the Drupal table on the left listing the fields we use for a migration. Directly to its right is the WordPress table with the corresponding field in the same row. So for example, the nid in Drupal’s node table is exported to the id field in the WordPress wp_posts table.

I have listed all the fields used in the query. If a Drupal field shows no mapping in the WordPress table, it is being used to match entries in another table for a join. Here we use the vid field in node and node_revisions for an INNER JOIN.

Table mapping for WordPress wp_posts

Drupal 6.x

WordPress 3.x

Notes

node

wp_posts

nid

id

id

post_author

created

post_date

Create date from UNIX timestamp

title

post_title

changed

post_modified

Create date from UNIX timestamp

type

post_type

status

post_status

vid

node_revisions

body

post_content

teaser

post_excerpt

vid

node

url_alias

nid

dst

post_name

If dst field is NULL, use nid

src

to_ping

Whitespace string

pinged

Whitespace string

post_content_filtered

Whitespace string

Query

REPLACE INTO wordpress.wp_posts (
id,
post_author,
post_date,
post_content,
post_title,
post_excerpt,
post_name,
post_modified,
post_type,
post_status,
to_ping,
pinged,
post_content_filtered)
SELECT DISTINCT
n.nid ‘id’,
n.uid ‘post_author’,
DATE_ADD(FROM_UNIXTIME(0), interval n.created second) ‘post_date’,
r.body ‘post_content’,
n.title ‘post_title’,
r.teaser ‘post_excerpt’,
IF(a.dst IS NULL,n.nid, SUBSTRING_INDEX(a.dst, ‘/’, -1)) ‘post_name’,
DATE_ADD(FROM_UNIXTIME(0), interval n.changed second) ‘post_modified’,
n.type ‘post_type’,
IF(n.status = 1, ‘publish’, ‘private’) ‘post_status’,
‘ ‘,
‘ ‘,
‘ ‘
FROM drupal.node n
INNER JOIN drupal.node_revisions r USING(vid)
LEFT OUTER JOIN drupal.url_alias a
ON a.src = CONCAT(‘node/’, n.nid)
WHERE n.type IN (
/* List the content types you want to migrate */
‘page’,
‘story’,
‘blog’,
‘video’,
‘forum’,
‘comment’);

Table mapping for WordPress terms

This table mapping exports the Drupal terms into WordPress.

Drupal 6.x

WordPress 3.x

Notes

term_data

wp_terms

tid

term_id

name

name

name

slug

Make lower case and convert spaces to underscores

vid

term_group

Not used in a default WordPress installation

term_data

wp_term_taxonomy

tid

term_taxonomy_id

tid

term_id

taxonomy

String: ‘post_tag’ or ‘category’

description

description

parent

0 (No parent)

In the WordPress Taxonomy documentation, “term_group is a means of grouping together similar terms.” During a standard migration, the WordPress term_group is set to the Drupal vocabulary ID, which seems to make sense. Nevertheless, a default WordPress installation does not actually use the value for anything. It may have been included by the developers for future expandability or use by plugins.

term_group=0 is the default value when creating a term using the Drupal user interface.

Below, we associate posts with the newly migrated terms.

Drupal 6.x

WordPress 3.x

term_node

wp_term_relationships

nid

object_id

tid

term_taxonomy_id

Table mapping for WordPress users

This maps Drupal user export to WordPress.

Drupal 6.x

WordPress 3.x

Notes

users

wp_posts

uid

ID

name

user_login

Format to lowercase, replace spaces with underscores

pass

user_pass

name

user_nicename

mail

user_email

created

user_registered

Formatted from UNIX time

name

display_name

user_status

Whitespace string

user_activation_key

Set to 0

Table mapping for WordPress user meta values

User information like capabilities and roles in the wp_usermeta table.

users

wp_usermeta

uid

user_id

meta_key

Set to string e.g. ‘wp_capabilities’

meta_value

Set to string e.g. ‘a:1:{s:6:”author”;s:1:”1″;}’

More information about the settings for appropriate meta_key and meta_value can be found in the WordPress Codex:

Node authors and comment authors

Drupal stores both node authors and comment authors in the users table. WordPress handles things differently. Page and post authors are stored in the wp_users table but comment authors are stored in wp_comments together with the comment data.

Table mapping for WordPress comments

Drupal 6.x

WordPress 3.x

Notes

comments

wp_posts

cid

comment_ID

nid

comment_post_ID

timestamp

comment_date

Converted from UNIX timestamp

comment

comment_content

pid

comment_parent

name

comment_author

mail

comment_author_email

homepage

comment_author_url

Truncated to WordPress limit of 200 chars

status

comment_approved

Comment authors

A note about the different ways Drupal and WordPress store comment author information: Drupal stores comment authors in its users table alongside site users like node authors. In WordPress, comment authors are stored in its wp_comments together with the comment data. WordPress comment authors are not entered into the wp_users table.