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This is just what I needed to get out of having to connect several times to an external database using "mod_php" modules. I had php modules scattered all over my pages and each one was making an individual connection to mysql - not the best way to go about things of course!

After installing this very simple but powerful extension, I soon got results out my external database with a bit of coding and trial and error, absolutely fab, worked like a dream and I recommend that anyone who wishes to get external data to use this.

The documentation is brief and I couldn't quite work out how to display the data from the example but I got around displaying results using Dreamweaver's clunky old code to retrieve the data - I must add that I did NOT use Dreamweaver to establish the database connection - that's what this plug in does. Anyway, here's my example code which may help others until someone puts the right answer on this thread - if anyone can contribute or put me right on this then please do.


// Create new ExternalDB instance, using the details that we set earlier.

$dbxo = new externaldatabase ( 'put_the_name_of_your_database_here' );

// Create a new jDatabase object, connected with the details from the above selected DSN.

// We call ExternalDB objects $dbx just as a standard practice

$dbx = $dbxo->getDB ();


$query_whatever = "SELECT * FROM my_database_table WHERE some_field='some_value'";
$whatever = mysql_query($query_whatever) or die(mysql_error());
$row_whatever = mysql_fetch_assoc($whatever);
$totalRows_whatever = mysql_num_rows($whatever);

echo $row_whatever['the_database_column_name'];

Thats it - it works very well.

Many thanks to the developer for getting me out of a big hole!!

I wanted to write a thanks to the developer and some help to others - so here goes:

After thinking to myself that I will need to put my php/xml hat on and create an application that delivered multiple xml feeds from affiliate networks, I am pleased to say that I stumbled across this plugin.

It took a while to understand what it was actually supposed to do on the front end and I actually uninstalled it as I didn't quite get it at first - my impatience and misunderstanding.

However, due to being persistent - I reinstalled and persevered with it.

I cannot say how excellent this product is, once you get a handle on it, you'll understand the incredible power of how to display multiple XMLfeeds or CSV files derived from affiliate data feeds into your website.

The documentation on the dev website is brief and gives you some help but I really do recommend using this - it's quite clearly a very powerful product available for Joomla for affiliate marketing.

I edited a few core php docs to get the data displaying how I wanted it and the routes to the various files are:

Components>com_datafeeds>views>items>tmpl>(whatever_file_you_want_to_edit)

You have to make sure that you take time to understand and experiment with the relationship between the Data Menu Module and the Data Menu Link in the main Joomla menu - you have to give the Module a menu id for it to work successfully.

All in all, this is an excellent piece of work, there could be more language support but in reality, if you are prepared to spend some time with the core language files and a little bit of source code editing to match your requirements, you really can get this streamlined to deliver great results and in a fraction of the time it would take you to do this from scratch.

Great plug in, great work. Many thanks to the developer.