Exporting Section Text

[AdieB]

Does anybody know of a way to do a simple export of Product ref, Section Text and Price. I need to use this data in Excel to search for products and update prices.....
I have looked at the mole-end mash product, but it doesn't seem suitable. I have also tried using Access, but the section text - category field is also not suitable.
Any help would be appreciated.

[Duncan Rounding]

You can export the catalog and you will have the information you need.

Alternatively if you just need product data then in Excel you import external data from the Access database.

[malbro]

Does anybody know of a way to do a simple export of Product ref, Section Text and Price. I need to use this data in Excel to search for products and update prices.....
I have looked at the mole-end mash product, but it doesn't seem suitable. I have also tried using Access, but the section text - category field is also not suitable.
Any help would be appreciated.

I assume you mean Product Description and not Section Text, as the Section text is not in the Product table but in the Catalog Section Table. If you do mean the section text then you would need a program to extract from both tables using the link between the Parent Section ID in Product Table and the Section ID in Catalog Section Table.

[AdieB]

I am trying to get the Section Text out in a similar format that it was entered in the flat file import,
i.e, Computers|Notebooks|Dell or similar

I haven't been able to do this with the catalog.mdb or using the mash product??

[malbro]

I am trying to get the Section Text out in a similar format that it was entered in the flat file import,
i.e, Computers|Notebooks|Dell or similar

I haven't been able to do this with the catalog.mdb or using the mash product??

Ah misunderstanding, that is the section titles of all the parent sections listed together with a | character as a separator, as such that complete list does not exist in the Access tables.

You are looking at the section titles for a series of sections, so to generate it you would need a program that starts with the product and finds its parent section, then look up the section to find the title and also if it has a parent. If no parent you have all the titles otherwise lookup that parent ID in the Catalog Section and get the Title and also see if there is a parent, continue until there is no parent (top level section).

The code to do this exists on the forum, it is part of Gabes free Navigation but would need further refining to do precisely what you want.

[NormanRouxel]

Interrogating the database is hard work but we can avoid that by letting Actinic do it for us.

Very quick and dirty way. Paste the following into a Product or Fragment details:

!!<
<actinic:block type="EntireSectionList">
	<actinic:block type="ProductList">
		<actinic:block type="ParentSectionList" /><actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22ListIndex%22%20%2f%3e%20%21%3d%201" >|</actinic:block><actinic:variable value="Compact This Section Name" name="ParentSectionLinkItem" /></actinic:block>,
		<actinic:variable name="ProductReference" />, <actinic:variable name="ProductName" />, <actinic:variable name="ProductPriceRaw" />
		<br />
	</actinic:block>	
</actinic:block>
>!!

And it will generate a list like:

Photographic|Cameras|Digital SLR Camera, 64, Digital SLR Camera, 349.99
Photographic|Cameras|Digital Camera, 99, Digital Camera, 33.33
Electronics|Computers|Multimedia PC, 13, Widescreen Multimedia PC, 1099
Electronics|TV & Home Cinema|Home Cinema System, 12, Home Cinema System, 340.42

that you can copy/paste into a text file.

You could also put this code (without the !!< and >!!) into your Overall Layout with some extra PHP code that writes it to a text file, all surrounded with a blockIf that only lets it run on a single page (like the store top). Result - a file waiting in your Site folder that's recreated every time you do an update refresh or full preview.