Download your phpBB forum posts with phpBB-extract

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guest_of_logic
Posts: 1063
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:51 pm

Download your phpBB forum posts with phpBB-extract

Post by guest_of_logic »

As Alex revealed not long ago, I had written a few years back at his request (and expense) a little script to extract and retrieve a user's posts from a phpBB-powered board such as Genius Forum, and as I explained in that thread, it's basically a web scraper. The problem was, it was a command line script, which made it awkward to share with others, because a user had to have PHP installed on their machine, and had to fiddle around with a settings file. So, I finally got around to spinning off and offering a web version.

You can now retrieve all of the posts of any specified (non-banned) user through the phpBB-extract page on my website. Other than Alex and Katy (now going by "Dani"), you are the first people I've revealed this URL to - I haven't even linked to it from my home page yet. I'm very interested in feedback - what you think works, what doesn't work, what could be worded/worked better, etc. After following up on your feedback, I will feel more confident in the "advertising" of this resource.

I do hope that this script is useful to the phpBB community.

Cheers,
Laird
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Diebert van Rhijn
Posts: 6469
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: Download your phpBB forum posts with phpBB-extract

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

A lot of work went in this, Laird. Great! In my opinion you should create an open-source project so people can adjust, improve and install it themselves. That also takes away any security concerns. It would really be a great service and I'm sure the audience would be bigger that way.

I've done something similar as you in the past but with a command-line tool in python. Always wondered why phpBB didn't provide this already like with the PM's. To save search results or something. Or as admin option. But while as admin the posts can be deleted or moved on basis of username, there's no other option left but some direct database access or indeed scraping.
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guest_of_logic
Posts: 1063
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:51 pm

Re: Download your phpBB forum posts with phpBB-extract

Post by guest_of_logic »

Hi Diebert,

Thanks for your comments. It's interesting that you've done something similar already - that suggests a real need for a tool like this. I'll think about your suggestion of open-sourcing the project, and whether or not it would be better to open-source the web or command-line version of the script (or both).

Laird
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