Believe me, this is NOT automated at all. If you're really interested, these are the steps that I have to go through. If nothing else this helps me remember all of the steps that I need to take.
- Install MySQL and ODBC drivers on PC (1 time job)
- Run a program called PG Offine which sucks the Yahoo Group into an Access database on my PC
- Run BullZip's "Access to My SQL" program which copies the Access database to a MySQL database on my PC
- Use HeidiSQL to export MySQL tables to SQL file.
- Edit SQL file to access appropriate database on main web server
- Use HeidiSQL to access database on main web server
- Import SQL files created/edited in steps 4 & 5 to web server database
- Spend 2 days writing code to merge above database with phpBB database.
- Modify "inport_yahoo.php" to point to the correct forum. Note this is hard coded.
- Execute "import_yahoo.php" via web browser
- Delete temporary database tables created in step 7.
- Delete "import_yahoo.php" from web server
Now, as far as the rest of your questions.
Keeping this updated will be a spuradic event as it's not automated. Basically you have to repeat the above, just selecting posts past a certain date. The code would have to be updated to look for posts with the same subject and merge them into it. That's a whole other programming issue as I didn't plan for that, but it can be done. The other option is to just rebuild the entire archive every time I do this. That might be a lot easier.
I have absolutely no problem with people cleaning up the archives, but if I rebuild it from scratch, that won't work. I guess that should just be put on hold pending how much time I can devote to automating this.
I plan to have the archive be "read-only" so that no one can add anything. It is an archive after all...
-- Geoff