>point bp to the existing database
You mean point BP to some forum tables in another database? But get everything else from the new site database?
You don’t want to do that.
You’ll want to export/import your forum tables to the new site.
Do you have access to phpmyadmin ?
If you don’t know, ask your hosting company.
You want to copy over the forum tables to the new site database.
Using a browser interface like phpmyadmin, it’s easy to export / import.
tip: export as gzip
Since you are working on a new site, it’s okay if you screw-up the first try or two.
You’ll find out if there is any structural difference in the tables – hopefully not.
there were no forums in the old database, just user info…and I’m pretty sure the table was built pre web 2.0 – thanks for the tips, I will play around with it and check back here.
If the old site isn’t WordPress –
You’ll need to write a script to insert the existing users to your new database.
Might be tricky.
Do a search on migrating from code-base-of-your-old-site to WordPress, you might get lucky.
oh yeah, it’s not originally wordpress…I am interested to see the results I get on this tonight. I know the guy that built the original table is still around, I’m just not sure how available he is to help me out. And, I chalk this up to a really good opportunity for a learning experience.
no luck so far on finding any help…so if anybody has any other help to offer? I can’t imagine I am the only one who has wanted to do this.
@piccollopete we don’t quite know from what application/software you are migrating from in the first place. I can only guess from the first post that you’re migrating from another forum software. The easier route then is to import data/users from that software into WordPress with bbPress plugin, after which you can install BuddyPress which works with bbPress plugin.
Do post at bbPress.org to check whether an import script has been created for your specific forum software.
