Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

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Paul
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Re: Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

Post by Paul »

There is, as far I know, no database diagram. Why not? Simply because no one needed it, and as such it has not been created yet.
The database itself is all created by the database migrations, which you can find at github.
Database_Digger wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 3:00 am Now for that obsoleteness - That is exactly a point I want to make by posting my question about it here:
1 - Why does this type of documentation have to be created by a external 3rd party person ?
Why does this type of documentation have to be created by the development team, when they don't need it to do their development work? As everyone works on phpBB in it's free time this sometimes means that priority not always to get this kind of very technical documentation written.
2 - Why is this type-of-material not natively produced by the relevant and responsible phpBB
- Database Developers ?
- Documentation Specialists ?
- Community Managers ?
I don't know how much your experience is, but I can tell you, a lot of open source projects don't have people that are so dedicated to a task :).
I've already seen this phpBB manual, which looks really great and well done (to my personal opinion):
- https://area51.phpbb.com/docs/dev/master/index.html

So some (end-user-level) documentation is being actively worked on very well.
Now I'm seriously wondering when these efforts will be extended into upgrading the current developer-sections / wikis too?
Everyone is free to contribute to documentation. You can find all our documentation at github. Please keep in mind that the dev documentation would be the right location for this kind of documentation, we are working on moving a lot of stuff from the wiki to the dev documentation.
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Re: Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

Post by thecoalman »

Database_Digger wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 2:24 am
- What can technically be the /rootcause of internal broken phpBB forum links?
My forum goes back to phpBB2 in the early 2000's. I'm not aware of any corruption of the links. The way they are stored in the database has changed over the years. It's not too difficult to use simple find and replace now but that was not the case with 3.0, not sure what version it switched to current format. They were much more difficult to manually edit than they are now. If someone was manually editing that's probably the source.

If you are referring to valid URL's but simply go no where there is of course many reasons. Other than common ones like the topic was deleted the one thing I can think of is modules.

ucp.php?i=164

ucp.php?i=ucp_profile&mode=profile_info

While the value for the i parameter in second link is universal the numeric version is not, it's not typical but it can change for various reasons.

Unfortunately not many individuals:
- think that having good documentation is _that_ important.
The issue is managing it and the time involved. We are all volunteers and fully documenting phpBB would be considerable effort where that time is better spent on other tasks.
“Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I have found several thousand things that won’t work.”

Attributed - Thomas Edison
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Re: Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

Post by Kailey »

I'd like to remind everyone to please post with respect. A question about visual DB representations was asked and answered. ;)
Kailey Snay - Community Team Leader
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Re: Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

Post by Database_Digger »

thecoalman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:29 am My forum goes back to phpBB2 in the early 2000's. I'm not aware of any corruption of the links. The way they are stored in the database has changed over the years. It's not too difficult to use simple find and replace now but that was not the case with 3.0, not sure what version it switched to current format.They were much more difficult to manually edit than they are now.
Thanks for the feedback on this topic thecoalman.
thecoalman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:29 am If someone was manually editing that's probably the source.
This was my very first gut-feeling too, BUT in order to be very sure about this, I first wanted to EXCLUDE everything else for myself.
That Is the main reason why I choose to dig into all underlying technical aspects of the phpBB forums software first.
thecoalman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:29 am If you are referring to valid URL's but simply go no where there is of course many reasons.
Agreed. That is why I choose this road: To first dig deeper to the phpBB bottom and fully understand all technologies involved as in:
- Apache / NGINX - the webservers upon which phpBB can be installed
- PHP - The programming language involved
- phpBB architecture - To see how stuff is designed / should work under the hood
- Symfony - The software development package is used to build phpBB
- Doctrine - The Data Base Abstraction layer / Object Relationship Mapper between phpBB and the database
- *.SQL databases - To understand how phpBB information is stored, can be retrieved (and get broken sometimes)
thecoalman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:29 am Other than common ones like the topic was deleted the one thing I can think of is modules.
- ucp.php?i=164[/rul - [url]https://www.p ... ofile_info
While the value for the i parameter in second link is universal the numeric version is not, it's not typical but it can change for various reasons.
Thanks for the modules tips. I will digg into that later on in time. But again - I'm not the admin of this forum.
I'm only an end-user, learning more about phpBB myself, so I can assist the current admin to fix things.
thecoalman wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:29 am
paul wrote: Unfortunately not many individuals: think that having good documentation is _that_ important.
The issue is managing it and the time involved. We are all volunteers and fully documenting phpBB would be considerable effort where that time is better spent on other tasks.
1. From what I've read and I've already seen - across the phpBB forums - is that you must be one of the longest? / oldest? / most experienced? phpBB community members here. May I thank you for your work and the knowledge you've shared over the years. I've enjoyed reading it and learned a lot from it.

2. Regarding my (initial) topic-of-documentation: Simply let's Agree to Disagree on this topic.

I've found a wise documentation-statement from 1 of the famous (Dutch) Godfathers of Computer Science: Edsger W. Dijkstra
phpBB_com_importance_of_documentation.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra

and I wholeheartedly agree with Edsger's ancient ICT knowledge and wisdom on this matter.
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Re: Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

Post by Database_Digger »

Paul wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 7:43 am There is, as far I know, no database diagram. Why not? Simply because no one needed it, and as such it has not been created yet.
Let's agree to disagree on this matter, since I - while looking for my own answers on this matter - have already encountered a few (other) individuals - here on the official phpBB (area51 and enduser) forum's and on related websites(e.g. stack.exchange.com) - who also have been looking for the official ERD diagrams of the phpBB software for many years now.

Paul wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 7:43 am As everyone works on phpBB in it's free time this sometimes means that priority not always to get this kind of very technical documentation written.
Agreed!
- Everyone's own specific passions which brings them into a project
- The amount of free time available
- Open-source at the code_level
- "Insiders" vrs "Outsiders" vrs "the Project" asynchronous priorities.

and let's above all never forget:
- The returning stream of submitted bugs
- End-users newer ending request for new "features" (and submitted bugs)
A most complex and difficult batch of human && technical ingredients to manage and bring to a successfully end-results

If everything goes smoothly and well(documented) project management becomes an easy task. However. If - over time - some (random) area(51?)s inside the phpBB-project gets un(der)documented - for some reasons unknown to the rest of the community-members - one might have a change to get a "Close(d) Encounter with UPO's" (Unidentified Project Objects), which have the potential to complete halt (as in certain race-vehicle-conditions forcing it into a mandatory the pits-stop to fix things) the project, until this (internal information-flow) bottleneck has been unblocked and clarified again.

In relation to avoiding UPO creation, I've found a very inspiring statement on documentation inside the underlying attachment
phpBB_com_importance_of_documentation.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra
Paul wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 7:43 am
Database_Digger wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 3:00 am 2 - Why is this type-of-material not natively produced by the relevant and responsible phpBB
- Database Developers ?
- Documentation Specialists ?
- Community Managers ?
I don't know how much your experience is, but I can tell you, a lot of open source projects don't have people that are so dedicated to a task :).
Agreed, I already have experienced many of those projects (full-time / payware / spare-time / free / open-source) myself.
Paul wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 7:43 am Everyone is free to contribute to documentation. You can find all our documentation at github. Please keep in mind that the dev documentation would be the right location for this kind of documentation, we are working on moving a lot of stuff from the wiki to the dev documentation.
Thanks for the correct documentation_waypointers -> in the right direction inside the phpBB community Paul.
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Re: Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

Post by Database_Digger »

KaileyT wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 6:54 pm I'd like to remind everyone to please post with respect.
A question about visual DB representations was asked and answered. ;)
Read, Understood and Noted.

QUESTION for the Community Team:
Is there a kind of (centralized) phpBB Community/ Organisational Diagram. which clearly shows (newcommers like myself):
- Who is Who inside the phpBB community ?
- Who is responsible for which part(s) of the entire project ?
- Who works on which part(s) / module(s) of the phpBB project ?
- What are their personal passions / levels-of expertize are (inside/outside) the phpBB project ?

WHY?
- This helps (me) to find my way around quicker and more efficiently inside this community.
- This diagram can help everyone to connect instantly to the right team / relevant person(s)
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Re: Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

Post by Paul »

Database_Digger wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:44 am
KaileyT wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 6:54 pm I'd like to remind everyone to please post with respect.
A question about visual DB representations was asked and answered. ;)
Read, Understood and Noted.

QUESTION for the Community Team:
Is there a kind of (centralized) phpBB Community/ Organisational Diagram. which clearly shows (newcommers like myself):
- Who is Who inside the phpBB community ?
- Who is responsible for which part(s) of the entire project ?
- Who works on which part(s) / module(s) of the phpBB project ?
- What are their personal passions / levels-of expertize are (inside/outside) the phpBB project ?
https://www.phpbb.com/about/team/

WHY?
- This helps (me) to find my way around quicker and more efficiently inside this community.
- This diagram can help everyone to connect instantly to the right team / relevant person(s)
Please keep in mind that you should not contact teammembers directly, but post on the forums instead.
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Re: Visual phpBB SQL database (tables, flieds, indexes) diagram

Post by thecoalman »

Database_Digger wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 5:51 am 1. From what I've read and I've already seen - across the phpBB forums - is that you must be one of the longest? / oldest? / most experienced? phpBB community members here. May I thank you for your work and the knowledge you've shared over the years. I've enjoyed reading it and learned a lot from it.
Thanks for the compliment but there is team members and non team members that have been around just as long who are more knowledgeable than myself. I'm just a one man band that has learned a little bit about a lot of things, a lot of that knowledge gained here. ;)
“Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I have found several thousand things that won’t work.”

Attributed - Thomas Edison
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