Search & Replace Parameters in Joomla Database
Joomla CMS allows site owners to replace parameters at a time. If you wish to edit the parameter of articles, contacts or any other content, then it can be tiresome to search and replace parameters individually. So it’s better to look for the parameters and alter them in the Joomla database. This tutorial will assist you in searching and replacing parameters in Joomla website databases.
Steps to Search and Replace Parameters in Joomla Database
- Make a backup of your Joomla database using phpMyAdmin or any other tool. This step is part of the procedure even though most of the people ignore it. In case something goes wrong, you can recover your website as it is.
- Open your Joomla database in phpMyAdmin. Navigate to the table, ‘jos_contact_details’ and press Browse to look at the rows of the table.
- Only the first three parameters are listed. To view all the parameters, press the Print View button.
- Identify the name of the parameter and the value you wish to replace with. You can also compare the values in the table to the values you see in the backend screen. If you are unsure, you can look for the parameter in the XML file as well.
- Use the phpMyAdmin Export button to export the file. Click on the Save as file checkbox at the bottom of the screen to save the file. Keep all the default for the file format.
- A ‘jos_contact_details.sql’ text file is created which can be edited in any text editor. Better to make a backup copy of this file also. Open the file, do a global search and replace the parameters, you wish.
- In phpMyAdmin click the Empty button to clear the table, so that you can re-import the edited table. You will get a warning message but proceed further by selecting Yes.
- Press the Import button to import the file you just changed.
- Ensure that all your contacts are correct in Joomla.
The above tutorial alters parameters of jos_contact_details table in the database of your Joomla website. But you can follow the same procedure to alter parameters of the following as well:
- Articles (jos_content)
- Categories (jos_categories)
- Users (jos_users)