[TYPO3-english] Integrating external DB via API into Typo3

[Bart Zonneveld]

On 21 nov. 2011, at 14:29, Bernd Wilke wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:27:10 +0100, Bart Zonneveld wrote:
> 
>> Hello list,
>> 
>> I'm currently struggling with the following problem, and I hope someone
>> from the list can clear some things up.
>> 
>> My client has an existing Typo3 setup, namely a website about a
>> filmfestival. They want a general database to store movie information
>> in, which I'll build for them. This database will contain movies,
>> directors, screenings, basically a lot of business logic specific to
>> their situation. I've looked into the wfqbe extension, but since the
>> business logic is rather extensive, I cannot model this in wfqbe.
>> 
>> Ideally, I want to build an external app with database to store all the
>> information, and retrieve this information in the frontend of Typo3. All
>> authentication and business logic can be handled in this app, so no need
>> for a link between the backend of Typo3 and this database.
>> 
>> However, the information in the database should be available in Typo3.
>> The users of the Typo3 setup should ideally be able to fill their
>> templates with information is stored in the external app. Since I'll
>> build this app from scratch, I can offer the information in a variety of
>> formats, JSON-P, RSS, XML and so on.
>> 
>> Can you advise me on the best way to connect an external app to the
>> templates in Typo3?
>> 
> I don't get it why you have to do it in an external application.

I'm not entirely sure whether you understood my question :). See my comments below.

> so it might be a lot of tables with much relations you can build it 
> inside the TYPO3 DB and use TYPO3-BE for editing with the TYPO3 build in 
> features to control access.

The external application mentioned above is fairly complex, with a bootload of business logic. I haven't found an easy way to integrate all this logic in Typo3, neither in the database nor in the view layer. The only extension that looked promising for this specific problem was the wfqbe extension, however I can't integrate complex joins (a movie can have multiple ordered directors via a n-n join table) in wfqbe. Even if I could, I have no idea how to port this functionality into the views for visitors of the website.

> on the other way you can use the data in an easy way for the TYPO3 FE: 
> I have not done it yet, but it sounds like you may use the 'extension 
> builder' to get easy rendering with extbase and FLUID-templates.

Also, this external app needs to power multiple frontends, both inside Typo3 but also in a mobile website built with an entirely different stack.

> and for Ajax: do you want the data to be indexed by google?

This app is purely a backend database, no Ajax is needed, let alone indexing by Google. The app needs to power a number of different frontends.

So, to clarify my original question: I have an external API with flexibility in formatting of the data. How can I integrate this data into a Typo3 website?

Thanks for your reply,
bartz