Will Renaming My Databases "Break" the Installation??

[skeezix]

My databases are named rather generically as "_wrdp1" and "_joomla1".

I would like to rename them to something more descriptive. I think I can do this using phpmyadmin, but if I do, will something break?

The wordpress db is an active blog, while the joomla db is a fresh, brand-new installation.

[areidmtm]

Yep it sure will. You can rename them however, if you edit the PHP files that define them.

[hofmax]

My advice - leave them alone you're saving yourself some unnecessary grief. It will take you extra effort to find the database definitions in php in the scipt and I can't see any direct gain from renaming them to be honest.

[skeezix]

My reasoning for meaningful names (and I don't mean to imply that such reasoning is necessarily valid - I'm just a newbie here) is:

I have one website and one blog now, and they are associated with one particular entity, but in the future I plan to have a website and blog for each of several entities (like fish, birds, dogs, etc. for example), .

Naming all the blog databases _wrdp1, _joom1, _wrdp2, joom2, etc. would leave me wondering which db belonged to what animal. But if the dbs were named something like _fishblog, _fishsite, _dogblog, _birdsite, I would know what data they held.

I also plan to place each entity's blog and website in separate folders inside public_html as shown in the following structure:

public_html/
fishblog/
fishsite/
dogblog/
dogsite/

I am told that it is best to have a separate installation of WP inside each blog folder. However, I don't know if the same applies to Joomla (my CMS for the website files) so I'll ask about that in the Joomla forum.

I'd really like to know what you and others think about the method to my madness...

[felgall]

Why are you setting up separate databases for each application rather than just using one database for all of them? The only time you need to separate into a second database is if that application may be moved to different hosting independently of the rest of the site (and even then it isn't really necessary).

[lazynitwit]

Why are you setting up separate databases for each application rather than just using one database for all of them? The only time you need to separate into a second database is if that application may be moved to different hosting independently of the rest of the site (and even then it isn't really necessary).

Probably because they're using Fantastico, and Fantastico makes a new database for each application.

[felgall]

That is just one of the many reasons why doing the install yourself is better than using Fantastico with all of its default settings that it doesn't allow you to change. About all Fantastico is really good for is providing a list of applications of various types so you know what software to look for to install manually - where you get to configure it properly.

[skeezix]

Why are you setting up separate databases for each application rather than just using one database for all of them? The only time you need to separate into a second database is if that application may be moved to different hosting independently of the rest of the site (and even then it isn't really necessary).

Because the folks at the Wordpress forum strongly recommended I do a separate installation of WP for each blog. Why? I dunno. And yes, I did use Fantastico to provide me with Wordpress and Joomla.

I know very little about any internet application that became popular after HTML 3.0, so I take advantage of the tools provided to get me going. And that's just about all they do, is get you going.

[felgall]

All you need to do is select a different prefix for the table names when installing WordPress and you can install as many copies of it as you like all in the one database.

[skeezix]

Yes, that's what I was thinking when I started out with WP. But like I wrote, several people suggested/recommended I keep each blog in its own folder on the host and I include a separate installation of WP in each of those folders. Nobody explained why.

[felgall]

Keep each blog in its own folder with a separate installation of WordPress, that gives you maximum flexibility for being able to control who can do what with each blog. If you use a single install then the user settings will apply to all blogs instead of just the one you want to give access to.

Store all the blogs in ONE database simply by using a different set of table names for each blog so that each blog uses their own tables. One of the options in the install process is the prefix you want on the table names for this install. The default prefix is wp_ and all you need to do to be able to install 5000 blogs each with their own copy of WP in their own folder and still only using one database is to set a different prefix value for each blog.