Introduction & Installation
The External Entries plugin enables you to update, insert into, select and delete from tables either within your ExpressionEngine database or any other MySQL database on the internet to which you have administrative access.
The plugin makes it much easier to view, add, edit or delete various types of data in your EE site -- and also much easier to integrate your EE site with other systems.
h2. Compatibility
As of v2.6 of the plugin, it only works with EE v2.9 and above. If you are using an older version of ExpressionEngine, please contact adam@engaging.net for a copy of External Entries v2.5.2, the last version to use deprecated PHP syntax for accessing a MySQL database.
h2. Warning
If you are copying and pasting directly from these docs, make sure you replace the fancy quotes (“ and ”) with simple ones (=="==).
h2. Installation
h4. EE v1.x (only if you have External Entries v2.5.2 or older)
Place the _pi.external_entries.php_ file in the _/system/plugins_ directory.
h4. EE v2.x
Upload the _/external_entries_ folder into the in the _/system/expressionengine/third_party_ directory.
h2. Tags
There are four tags, each of which lets you operate not only on ExpressionEngine's database but on any database to which you have administrator access:
h3.
exp:external_entries:select
The Select tag displays tables from a database.
h3.
exp:external_entries:update
The Update tag lets you easily update rows in any database table. For example, another system, such as PayPal, can send a form to the page containing the Update function, which can update both EE (such as changing the status of a payment from pending to paid) and another system in turn.
h3.
exp:external_entries:insert
The Insert tag lets you easily insert a row into any database table.
h3.
exp:external_entries:delete
The Delete tag lets you easily delete rows from any database table.