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LAR import/export between different versions of Liferay portals

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138209, modified 15 Years ago.
LAR import/export between different versions of Liferay portals
Regular Member Posts: 139 Join Date: 9/10/07 Recent Posts
Hi Guys,

As of I know, Liferay portal does not support LAR export/import functionality between different versions of the portal. Is it a better idea to introduce this feature in the upcoming versions of the portal?

I personally think it would be easier to migrate between different versions of portal through LAR export/import irrespective of application servers/database servers that we are using.

Please let me know your views on the same.. emoticon

Many Thanks,
Sharan
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4753419, modified 15 Years ago.
RE: LAR import/export between different versions of Liferay portals
Liferay Legend Posts: 7942 Join Date: 3/24/10 Recent Posts
I personally think it would be easier to migrate between different versions of portal through LAR export/import irrespective of application servers/database servers that we are using.


If it's just a matter of migration, I really don't need it because it's just a matter of upgrading and doing a export/import. However, I sometimes want to copy a content to another site which is running a different version. In such circumstances, I would like to convert between the versions.

Concerning whether this conversion between version should be done during the export/import, however, if a different matter. I think it would be better to have it supported as a different batch command line tool because there already is enough people having trouble with the current export/import. Adding more functionality would just make it more error prone.
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10437, modified 15 Years ago.
RE: LAR import/export between different versions of Liferay portals
Liferay Legend Posts: 2871 Join Date: 8/31/06 Recent Posts
Hi Sharana,

I've wanted to have support for that for a while, and even started working on a prototype, but then I realized that it's a much harder thing than it seems at first.

The reason for it being so tough is that the internal format of the LAR (specifically its XMLs) may change from one version to another. And that is not only for Liferay's default portlets but for any custom portlet that also defines a data handler. So in order to allow for imports, each portlet has to provide code that is able to migrate its XML files from one format to another. If one single portlet fails to provide this, then the import could result in bad data being generated.

In other words it would be quite a bit of work on the framework side and even more work for each portlet (core and custom). And even after that there won't be a guarantee that things would work (due to custom portlets).

If you guys have any idea to simplify this I would love to hear it.
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4753419, modified 15 Years ago.
RE: LAR import/export between different versions of Liferay portals
Liferay Legend Posts: 7942 Join Date: 3/24/10 Recent Posts
I've wanted to have support for that for a while, and even started working on a prototype, but then I realized that it's a much harder thing than it seems at first.


That's exactly why I thought it would be better to just have an utility. An utility utilizing web service interfaces between two version can be developed in a short amount of time. The downside of using web interface to copy data between version is that Liferay's web interface is too low level compared to lar.

A lar version of an utility can be developed using Liferay's existing export and import classes. Package name, however, has to be changed for each version/revision but that shouldn't be too much work.