Borrowing from a Joomla table

[Annalyzer]

I agreed to write an event registration site for a group and then later found out that their website was created with Joomla. I had never heard of Joomla so I started reading about it and it seems like a great idea for people who don't write code and want a quick, great looking website. However, it is limited to the templates and add-ons that have been written specifically for Joomla. I don't have the time or inclination to learn what I need to know to write code for Joomla, but I would like to be able to borrow from the registered user database in Joomla for my event registration.

It appears Joomla is written with PHP and MySQL so it stands to reason that I should be able to draw from a table that Joomla has already created. Does anyone know if this is possible and perhaps a resource for how to do it?

I asked about this in the Joomla forum, but they seem to be strictly Joomla people and directed me to a hotel booking add-on for Joomla.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

[Atli]

Hi.

I don't know the first thing about Joomla, other than it is some sort of a jumbo CMS system, but if it is written in PHP you might be able to bend it to fit your requirements, or at least add to it.

But we need to see the code you are working with to be able to offer any sort of useful insight.

[Markus]

If you're talking about a database, you don't need to know anything about Joomla - just the database. Find out the table and table field names, then run you SQL queries.

[ak1dnar]

It's better if you first check the joomla extensions library. may be you are not the first one who creating event registration extention for joomla. I'm assuming that you are trying to integrate this with the existing web site.
http://extensions.joomla.org/

[Annalyzer]

Thanks all. I don't have access to the server yet, so I haven't seen the server side coding yet.

Atli, I'm hoping you're right.

Markus, that's the problem. I don't know the table names. Hopefully, once I have access to the server I will be able to find everything I need. My fear is that Joomla somehow hides everything.

ak1 - Joomla looks like a great tool for people who don't know how to build a website from scratch. However, for those who do, it feels restrictive. That's why I don't want to just use another Joomla extension. I guess I'm a control freak that way. I rebelled against Windows for a long time too because i felt that I had more control with DOS. =)

[Markus]

@Annalyzer
Well, as far as I know, Joomla doesn't use any enigmatic way of storing data in a database - it should generally be the same way as any of us would do it (with the exception of Dorm and his PDO obsession ;).

If you have access to the database, then you'll be able to find the tables that Joomla has created and uses pretty easily, I image. If Joomla are smart, they'll prefix their table names / field names with something like 'jmla'. Otherwise, taking a look at the sourcecode (database interface) should reveal all their secrets.

Let us know how you get on,

Mark.

[zorgi]

default prefix for joomla tables is 'jos'... most of the time people use default... in your case you need table called jos_users (if prefix was default).

[Annalyzer]

Thanks so much zorgi! At least I can get some work done with relative confidence that I won't have to go back and change everything. It looks to me like the company that originally built this site did pretty much everything by default. That's why the owners hired me to "fix" it.

[zorgi]

You welcome

But I think the best approach is not just to trust me. The way I would do it is:

1) find out joomla version (after all its free)
2) install the same version in my developing environment (xampp)
3) play with tables and administration as much as I want to without any worry of damaging data on production server

But than again thats just me