Here is a very risky “extension”.  If you’re forced to move your EE install to a different path it can be a pain to find all the locations of your server path or url, so I’ve made a global “find and replace” utility.  It run’s outside of the CMS, in case you’re using it to update the config.php file.  In short here is what it does:

1. Finds all occurrences of str1 in the config.php file and replaces it with str2
2. Finds all occurrences of str1 ANYWHERE in the database and replaces it with str2

Because the changes this file makes are so great, please do not run it without backing up both your database and your config.php file.  Even after doing so, please make sure you understand what you’re doing because this can cause a lot of headaches if used incorrectly.

That said, I’ve used this file many, many times to port several builds across servers and it works well.  Please let me know what you find.

To Install:
Place the eemigrate.php file inside your “system” folder.  Navigate to it from a web browser, and enter the find str and the replace str.  Click “Go”.  Choosing alter database will toggle the ability to search through the database.

Thanks to Paul for the great idea: http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/40339/

UPDATE:
Taken down because of lack of updates.

Mark,

I don’t want to actually try because I’m a wimp - does this have an intermediary step where it echos everything it finds so that you can see what it’s about to do?

It doesn’t but give me some time and I can build that in.

Thank you.  Sounds like a good safety measure. =)

Alright, version 1.0.1 has a little warning screen that tells you the db columns and config params that it’s about to change.

This is fantastic. I might have more comments on it later, but at first try it seems to work well and will save me a lot of time moving things from local to dev, and then to live servers. Mark, I owe you some money for all your hard work - heading to your site now to pony up. Thanks.

Mark: This looks great- I’m trying it now and getting the following error:

There was a problem searching ee.exp_member_search.fields:

SELECT fields FROM exp_member_search WHERE fields LIKE ‘&#xmy;.olddomain.com%’

I checked a few installs and find no data in that field whatsoever.

dfbills, try version 1.0.2 up top.  It adds backticks around the field name so you won’t get a MySQL error (I hope!).

I’m using 1.0.2 and getting this result:

EE » Migrate (1.0.2)
There was a problem searching EE_lists.exp_member_search.fields:

SELECT `fields` FROM exp_member_search WHERE fields LIKE ‘&#xsu;bdomain.mydomain.com%’

@mdesign

Mark has a donation place on his website.  I don’t want to speak for him, but I’m sure you can give him as much as you’d want

http://docs.markhuot.com/

[edit]

So I have A.D.D. and didn’t read the rest of your post first because I saw something shiny!

@dfbills: You probably need backticks around the other field name:

I’m getting the same error with even a simple text string like “text”.

right, `text` and `field` are both SQL keywords, so that’s why they would need the backticks alerting SQL that you’re not referring to the keywords, but the field names.  anywhoo, i’ve updated the ext to 1.0.3 see if that fixes your problems.

It does run successfully now- although it seems to miss a few fields that need proper updating.

Fields I noticed immediately:

Hum, that’s strange because it’s doing the replace on ALL tables and fields.  I don’t have a list coded in there at all, it just grabs a list of all the tables and their fields then runs a replace on that.  Are you sure you’ve entered a string that exists in those fields?  Are you sure there’s content to replace?

Yes, I definitely had the data in there, I had to change it by hand to get up and running.  I’ll be trying it again in the next couple of weeks and will report back.  This tool sounds like just the ticket for me.

Mark:  I used 1.0.3 successfully yesterday to launch a site.  Here’s what I’ve written in my documentation:

—-

  The migrate tool will change embedded domain name and server path variables.  The following data is needed:  original host name, target host name, original server path, target server path. 
 
  The tool is available here:
 
  http://FINAL.DOMAIN.NAME/system/eemigrate.php
 
  The tool should be run twice:
 
  1.  Replace the host name
  2.  Replace the server paths

  Note: The folder “system” is a placeholder variable for EE system folder.  This folder should be renamed and not called “system”.

—-

It might be nice to actually tailor the tool to this purpose, prompting the user to complete the two-part process.

I’ve used this offline a few times already.
I moved an installed of EE to a different directory on Ubuntu, and ran this script.

Works flawlessly!
Three times thus far!

I’m sure (hoping so, really!) ... but pretty darned excited about getting my site ONline, so I can really test this out.

Thanks Mark!