mguhlin

Goofing Around with PHPMyAdmin #moodle

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php

One of my favorite tools to play around with when working with MySQL databases is PHPMyAdmin. This web-based tool allows you to do quite a bit, including importing Excel files into your web-based MySQL database. This is a life-saver! I wasn’t always a fan…the one feature I wished for, PHPMyAdmin didn’t seem to be able to do for me. Of course, I was still learning how to use a complex tool…now, it’s something I teach my team responsible for maintaining Moodle backups, etc.

Tonight, I found myself playing around with how to import a comma-delimited file (CSV) containing user accounts for Moodle. That is to say, I wanted to create an external database that Moodle could authenticate to, rather than importing users directly into Moodle.

Since I was running off a XAMPP (local installation), I found that the pre-installed version of PHPMyAdmin wasn’t working easily with the import of a CSV file. I’d previously learned about the right import settings, shown below (click to enlarge):

So, I threw out everything in /opt/lampp/phpmyadmin folder except the config file, and then dropped in the fresh version of PHPMyAdmin I’d downloaded from their web site. The import worked like a charm and I had even more options when doing it, as you can see below:
PHPMyAdmin is useful for a lot of other reasons, enabling you to optimize your database tables, eliminating overhead that can result in a crash. While you probably still want to take advantage of a desktop tool like SQLYog or Navicat Lite (also free), PHPMyAdmin is invaluable for on the go, everyday work…and it’s completely FREE.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

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4 comments

  3. Melissa, I wanted to create an external database that Moodle could authenticate to, rather than importing users directly into Moodle.So, to accomplish that, I had to import users into a MySQL database (e.g. students) so that I could point Moodle to that as an external database.The format of the file is comma-delimited, also known as CSV. If you go to SAVE AS or EXPORT in MS Excel, you'll see it as one of the options.Miguel

    Reply

  4. Melissa, I wanted to create an external database that Moodle could authenticate to, rather than importing users directly into Moodle.So, to accomplish that, I had to import users into a MySQL database (e.g. students) so that I could point Moodle to that as an external database.The format of the file is comma-delimited, also known as CSV. If you go to SAVE AS or EXPORT in MS Excel, you'll see it as one of the options.Miguel

    Reply

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