Easy Populate 1.2.5.4 support

[dalopey]

Thanks very much,

I'll try these out tomorrow. All products definatly have a unique item number on them.

I cant remeber what comes up when the new products are loaded. it certainly wasnt any kind of error message. Problem I have is if i upload new products to try this I cannot then delete them

I'm thinking the delete will have to be done the "old fashion" way!

When i did this - I went to clean up the mess I had made. I used the Catalog and Categories/Products page under ADMIN... when I chose the X, I was presented with check boxes where it existed - shown as:

Product Master Category:

With check boxes next to each...

So it does seem to know that they are cross Linked...

COOL!

And from the LESSON, i will always sort my file on the "v_products_model" column

[tgotch]

I am wondering how I can delete discontinued products. I get a csv file from my distributor that has nearly 8000 products. I try to upload this once a week. During that time, there are several products that have been discontinued. The products that are discontinued obviously are not on the csv file, but are still in my database.

Is there a way to have EP automatically delete them from my database (other than manually - as this would take hours to find/cross reference/delete)? Or can I wipe my products out, and redo a fresh product install every time?

Any help is appreciated.

[awhfy99]

I am wondering how I can delete discontinued products. I get a csv file from my distributor that has nearly 8000 products. I try to upload this once a week. During that time, there are several products that have been discontinued. The products that are discontinued obviously are not on the csv file, but are still in my database.

Is there a way to have EP automatically delete them from my database (other than manually - as this would take hours to find/cross reference/delete)? Or can I wipe my products out, and redo a fresh product install every time?

Any help is appreciated.

There are programs that will let you compare text files (the old cvs to the new one) but if I were doing it, I would keep a copy of the old upload, change the status column from a 1 (Active) to a 9 (which will delete the product) and then upload it. Then do the new list. Be sure to backup your database first in case it does no go according to plan.

[tgotch]

Dennis, Thanks for your reply.

Do you know what programs may compare csv files?

I am not sure what you are advising will work for me. As I mentioned, I have over 8000 products. In one weeks time, there may be 10-20 NEW products, and 5-10 discontinued between uploads to my db. So unless I am misunderstanding you, I would have to manually check everyone of the 8000 line items to see if a product has been dropped or added.

[Phil020782]

Does that mean if I edit that file and change /t to | that will be the delimiter?

Well I finally got round to trying it, I changed the seperator from /t to | and it seems to work perfectly. Hopefully it won't cause problems further down the road but just wanted to let everyone know it does work.

[inkuyo]

Dennis, Thanks for your reply.

Do you know what programs may compare csv files?

I am not sure what you are advising will work for me. As I mentioned, I have over 8000 products. In one weeks time, there may be 10-20 NEW products, and 5-10 discontinued between uploads to my db. So unless I am misunderstanding you, I would have to manually check everyone of the 8000 line items to see if a product has been dropped or added.

I am not sure on this. But you might try using winmerge. Don't know how if it would examine the contents of the CVS file.

The other option is to turn the product off by changing the status setting from "1" to "0" instead of "9" and deleting it. Then upload the new files with the status column of the new file set to "1". Similar to awhfy99's process, but without deleting the items from the database. over time this may make you database rather large and you will to maintain that aspect.

[Darkwander]

I can't see a answer to this question but there are over 120 pages..

Is there a version of Easy Populate that will work with;

Zen Cart v1.3.8
New Release with PayPal Website Payments Pro support

[Scrat]

Darkwander - Yes - Version 1.2.5.4 and all the other versions at present but this is the best stable version so far that is free!

See the original posters signature for the download link

[tbrides]

hi,
is it possbile to load a tsv file via ftp using this mod?

would the file have to be reformatted?
I've never used the mod before.

[bifficus]

Hi, I found this quote below in another thread for my problem, but no word as to whether or not it was any help.

First my issue:

When trying to create an EP file in temp (it is already too big to just download) I got the following message:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 100663296 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 96019431 bytes) in /home2/pccalca1/public_html/elocin/easypopulate.php on line 1041

A browse through the EP support thread led me to the quote below, but I was hoping someone else might be able to shed further light, as there was no response from the person that originally posted the issue.

Thank you!

Hello MikeyG,
You may of ran into a problem that you have no control over.

The above error message is generated by PHP. Translated it means that PHP is configured to use 8MB of RAM, and it tried to use about 3.6MB for EP. That means that other processes is using at least 4.4MB of RAM, so there is not enough RAM left that has be allocated to PHP to execute the command - in this case EP.

With this being an issue with PHP you may be restricted in what you can do, depending on if you host the site yourself or if it is being hosted. If you are hosting the site yourself you can just change the php.ini file, and increase the requested memory to 32MB, or anything else you may chose (just don't go overboard). If it is a hosted site you may not be able to change things yourself, just depends on what is in the agreement, and how comfortable you feel changing things. If your server is co-located then you should be able to change the file, otherwise you may have to speak with tech support and see if they are willing to change it for you.

A lot of things will just depend on what you are allowed, able, and willing, to do. If your hosting provider will not allow changes to the php.ini file then you have to find other solutions. If you are at this point then you have to make some hard choices. You will have to disable something, or just turn something off while trying to work with EP. You can't turn off ZC, yet you may have to turn off something like an image module. If this is not an option then see below for the final idea.

Worst case:
========
Worst comes to worst use the SQL patch tool under the tools section. You would start by installing MySQL (or another SQL RDBM [Relational Data Base Management] program of your choice) on one of your computers, maybe even doing a complete install of Apache, PHP, MySQL and Zen Cart with modules - for local testing. It may be a good idea to use the ZC install script to create the database so both the local and remote databases match in structure.

Once you have MySQL installed you can then use LOAD DATA INFILE to import your product information from the original source(s). Preform any needed operations to work the data into a form you need. Now export the database - you can use the backup command, and make sure it includes the needed commands, such as insert and update. You may have to edit the file in a text processor so as not to introduce unwanted control information from a word processor, and to insure the commands are correct.

Upload the file to your site, and then use the SQL patch tool to import it, or the MySQL tools included with your hosting package. You should be able to just execute things as all of the information and data is there. You could also brake the file up into small chunks to help fit within the memory constraints.

This this the hardest way of doing things as you have to know something about MySQL to help insure everything goes correctly. Also, you need to know how ZC lays out it's database, what tables you have to update, etc. Because of the technical nature of things this is not for the faint of heart.

Good luck Mikey G