Import data module

Question

I have a custom module to import nodes from a .txt file. (Drupal 7). My problem is I have a lot of nodes to import and this function takes so much time.

$operations = array();
$items = array();
$limit = 100;
$i = 0;

$regs = db_query("SELECT * FROM {table_import_apunte} WHERE field_processed = :processed", array(':processed' => 0));    

foreach ($regs as $row) {
      $row =  (array) $row;
      if ($i < $limit) {
        $items[] = $row;
        $i += 1;
      } else {
        $operations[] = array('csvImporter_create_nodes', array($items, 'apunte'));
        $items = array();
        $items[] = $row;
        $i = 1;
      }
    }

    if (!empty($items)) {
      $operations[] = array('csvImporter_create_nodes', array($items, 'apunte'));


    $batch = array(
      'title' => t('Importing %name table', array('%name' => drupal_strtoupper('apunte'))),
      'init_message' => t('Starting Import...'),
      'progress_message' => t('Processed @current out of @total.'),
      'error_message' => t('There was a problem importing the file.'),
      'operations' => $operations,
      'finished' => 'csvImporter_batch_finished',
    );

    batch_set($batch);
  }

csvImporter_create_nodes use save_node to create nodes. In this foreach, I divide $regs (which contain my data to import) in package of 100 elements and call the csvImporter_create_nodes function. I need to make this foreach faster and more efficient.

I have a version in Drupal 6 which is faster. This is the extract code:

while (($row = db_fetch_array($regs)) !== FALSE) {
  if ($i < $limit) {
    $items[] = $row;
    $i += 1;
  } else {
    $operations[] = array('_importer_batch_create_nodes', array($items, $table));
    $items = array();
    $items[] = $row;
    $i = 1;
  }
}

but it uses db_fetch_array and I can't use it in Drupal 7.

Answer 1

Drupal 7 replaced the Drupal 6 procedural interface with an object oriented interface. Several of the result interfaces are discussed here. They didn't exactly remove db_fetch_array(), they put it into the object oriented interface. You can use your while loop with

while (($row = regs->fetchAssoc()) !== FALSE) {

The following is a direct quote from drupal.org.

Example - Drupal 6:

<?php
$result = db_fetch_array(db_query("SELECT * FROM {boxes} WHERE bid = %d", $bid));
?>

Drupal 7:

<?php
$result = db_query("SELECT * FROM {block_custom} WHERE bid = :bid", array(':bid' => $bid))->fetchAssoc();
?>