Hi,
I hope this is an easy one. I just need to know: when a teacher adds an HTML block to their page, where is the HTML actually stored? I thought it would be in the database somewhere, but I can't find it, and I didn't see anything new under $MOODLEHOME/blocks either.
The higher-level view of my problem is this: a teacher has created a custom "links" block, and wants that block to be imported along with the other settings of last semester's class, so I need to find where/how custom HTML blocks are stored so I can write the code to make the import happen as expected. If I've missed something, by all means, flame away!
brian.
The data for each block (including the HTML block) is serialized, then base64encoded and stored inside the configdata field of the mdl_block_instance table.
That's why it will be hard to write a mysql query to backup/restore a lot of HTML blocks at once.
If you know PHP you can use
unserialize(base64_decode($instance->configdata))
to get at the real values.
That's why it will be hard to write a mysql query to backup/restore a lot of HTML blocks at once.
If you know PHP you can use
unserialize(base64_decode($instance->configdata))
to get at the real values.
Thanks for the information! I wonder if I couldn't do something using SQL to copy the data over, like INSERT FROM, for instance. Also, if all I'm doing is copying the data over, why do I need to decode it at all? I know PHP, but I'd rather have the database do it if I can. I'll report my results, but any thoughts are, of course, welcome.
What would be really wonderful is if the data model enabled a many-to-many relationship between block instances and course instances, but the overall app design doesn't seem to really account for that. Alternatively, associate a user-created block with the *user* instead of the *course*, so that teachers in charge of more than one course can go to their own block toolbox and drop in things without having to recreate them.
Well, that's a topic for another post I guess.
Thanks a bunch!
brian.
What would be really wonderful is if the data model enabled a many-to-many relationship between block instances and course instances, but the overall app design doesn't seem to really account for that. Alternatively, associate a user-created block with the *user* instead of the *course*, so that teachers in charge of more than one course can go to their own block toolbox and drop in things without having to recreate them.
Well, that's a topic for another post I guess.
Thanks a bunch!
brian.
it really works