v4.0.37.13 fileset

• Move logging of all actions to an admin controlled option by expanding the options of debug logging.
• Simplified the use of mysql_ and mysqli_ commands to up front single use instead of throughout the core code. The functions file was not at this time modified to support this.
• Refactored deep if statements to provide early escape or improved/simplified logic.
• Provide user file evaluation information of newly uploaded file to prevent attempting to import a problematic file. This was added based on user feedback of attempting to import a file that would be prohibited if attempted from the selection list.
• Added additional setting information to the main EP4 screen such as the primary key filter and the import filter for language dependent fields.
• Added a dropdown option for exporting product that do not have a manufacturer assigned. This is expected to reduce the effort needed to obtain the same information by exporting all product and then removing those from the exported list that do not have a manufacturer assigned.
• Corrected a typo associated with exporting Stock By Attributes (SBA) records sorted in ascending order.
• Refactored code to reduce code duplication.
• Flushed out the remainder of importing by language code (e.g. en, de, es)
• Expanded the options of selecting the language dependent field to consider only fields of the selected type instead of the preference of the selected type. Enforcement occurs only when the selected import language identifier ends with the word 'only', otherwise if a field with both the language id and language code is present in the file, the code will choose from the one that is present. If the selected language identifier is not present but the other one is present, then it will select from what is available. E.g. if set to language_code, then a file that has a single version of the field and it has the language identifier ending _1, then that field will be used. If both _en and _1 are present then _en will be used. If only _en is present, then that will be used.
• Replaced previous sanitization code segments with a single function to handle the processing instead of the repeated code necessary to sanitize each item.
• Modified product type designation to assign a value of 1 only if the product type doesn't have a product type assigned and it is a new product. This is expected to support product retaining the product type originally assigned and/or assigning a new product type if so desired.
• Added display output information for when artist name, category meta, music genre or record company name is empty/not being processed.
• Resequenced code for artist name, music genre and record company name to support resizing the database field to support import of longer data than what was originally supported. Previously this would skip the imported item, make the size change and then require the data to be imported again.
• Corrected the use of exiting externally addressed file processing such as record company name information by use of return instead of the previous use of continue. This will allow processing to continue beyond the call to such external file where previously processing would stop and the next record would be attempted.

v4.0.37.12 fileset

• Add default settings for variables (constants) that may not be defined.
• Reduce code necessary for logic.
• Move the install error notification (need to run install) up in front of the notification that the directory needs to be assigned based on user feedback during initial installation.
• Address notifications that occur with increased PHP versions and/or stricter notification.
• Prevent attempt providing a list of files if the directory folder hasn't been defined.
• Update ep4_cron to include the changes above.
• Provide support for utf8mb4 database collation.
• Add notification that an uploaded file was too large.
• Correct issues with category meta imports of data using the language code.

v4.0.37.11 fileset

v4.0.37.11 made the following updates/corrections:

• corrected the define of EP4_DB_FILTER_KEY if it had not been obtained from the database.
• moved $messageStack messaging from within the easypopulate_4_import.php file to after the file. This was to further improve the possibility of running cron tasks.
• addressed PHP 7.3+ system warning as a result of using a function's result within the php function end().
• In the basic attribute import file, changed from the typically hard coded value for an option type select (dropdown) to the variable/constant that actually represents an option type of select, PRODUCTS_OPTIONS_TYPE_SELECT.
• Added an error message to the basic attributes import file if primary_key is not present in the import file.
• Standardized sql statements (added table alias) to improve predefined variable use that can work in each instance without further modification.
• Further removed hard coded text content and placed for a constant.
• Improved basic import to possibly support not including the v_products_options_type column.
• In the basic attributes import, revised the sort order for products_options_values so that it did not always start at 1, but would continue to be incremented.
• On export of price, value is now rounded to the number of digits set within the configuration, or if not defined then to the default of 2 decimals.
• Added notifiers to support using an alternate primary key (default primary keys are products_model, products_id, or if on import and the products_id is empty then to create a new product with that record).
• Began implementing a new function for testing the presence of data (ep4_field_in_file)
• Refactored import code to move repetitive code up to centralize the operation.
• Removed some commented out code that has been incorporated into admin/includes/modules files. This helps clean up the import file a little more.
• Corrected product description and url assignment when using the language code instead of the default language id.
• Updated admin/ep4_cron.php to further address more stringent PHP requirements to eliminate notices and to prevent errrors associated with attempting to push the messageStack to the cron task.
• Updated discount export operation to ensure that a minimum number of columns are included in the export; however, to auto-identify the number of columns expected. This removes the need to know or to try to discover the maximum number of discounts. A significant difference is that the number of discount columns is no longer limited to the value entered so there may be those that wish to delete columns from their file.
• Improved the import of the category meta data to allow the omission of some of the columns.
• Added import recognition of language related fields to use the language code (e.g., en, de, es, etc..) instead of the language id and provide override capability if both are included in the import file.
• Further incorporated data sanitization in the category meta data import file to work like when using manual operation in the admin.

EasyPopulate V4 4.0.36 ZC Release

• Correct issue with sql statements in easypopulate_4_attrib.php where the bindVars substitution did not include the full variable name to replace.
• Correct a missing comparison value in easypopulate_4_import.php related to category names and not having mb_strlen enabled/installed on destination system.
• Modify the install process to offer an "update" process thus not requiring settings to be restored as part of a software upgrade.
• Provide some further modifications to the instructions to address common issues identified/addressed in the forum. This includes specific identification of how to delete product and how to change the master category id for a product which can allow/lead to removal of linked product.
• Provide direction on how one can fully copy the attributes from one store to another, although this is not a central focus of EP4.
• Resequence some code to aide readability and future modifications including applying code consistency in areas.
• Move sections of code out of the main easypopulate_4_import.php file and into module sections.
• Update bindVars data types to correlate to the database data type such that fields that were 0 (false)/1 (true) would not be required to be included in order to use the default value. (prices identified as currency instead of a string, Boolean as integer, weights as float, dates as date instead of string, etc...)
• Remove unnecessary global variables from code flow.
• Unset variables that are no longer needed within the area of use or afterwards.

EasyPopulate V4 4.0.35 ZC Release

• Full upgrade requires remove/install of the configuration settings, otherwise this version added a default to activate featured product that have an expiration date that is "blank" (0001-01-01)
• Added a notifier to follow loading the admin header.php file to support adding jquery related loads in a logical location rather than forcing the use of an alternative notifier.
• Modified the import of featured product to expand the capability and use of featured product management.
• Incorporated data cleaning on import of basic attributes.
• Modified import file to fallback to strlen comparison if mb_strlen is not installed/active on a site.
• Expanded the use of the code with systems that do not have mb_
• Added language fallback to english capability if the SESSION['language'] folder does not exist for EP4 menus.
• Modified one import bitwise operator to a comparison operator (& to &&).

EasyPopulate V4 4.0.34.a ZC released

Shortly after issuing v4.0.34 to the ZC site, a change was made to attempt to align the use of the category delimiter so that a single entry/modification could be made in the fileset and the delimiter for categories could be applied using UTF-8 characters on both import and export. This did not truly affect functionality, but was a long anticipated improvement on the program and opens up the possibilities of entering the delimiter into the database as an admin controlled character/character set. In retrospect the change only affected those that routinely reviewed the github site, but also seemed worthy of including in the ZC released version. Therefore v4.0.34.a was generated to alleviate confusion.

EasyPopulate V4 4.0.34 ZC released

Posted to the ZC forum with some of the following improvements.

• Priceqty file can now exclude the fields addressed in the products_description section of the import file without generating a SQL error.
• ZC 1.5.5 admin folder paths associated with initial ZC install or ZC upgrade are now properly supported as the DIR_WS_HTTPS_ADMIN constant was removed from the standard admin/includes/configure.php file. The method of approach is different than some others in that instead of blindly assigning/reassigning the constant, the associated constants are verified for existence and the necessary path(s) are built based on that discovery.