Upgrading Oscommerce 2.2 PHP 5.3 to 5.6

[swissperu]

Hello

 

We have been using Oscommerce 2.2 for more then 11 years now. Thinking about moving over to Magento or Prestashop, The only problem in switching to any new shop software is migrating all of our data. We have even created our own stock control system using PHP coding based off Oscommerce. We have rewritten most of the original code front end and back-end. Domain name is www.ch.discountlensshop.ch.

Instead of moving over to a different webshop software,  we where thinking about to upgrade our current and old php 5.3 to 5.6. Attached screen shot from our stock control which is accessed from www.ch.discountlensshop.ch/admin/master. We even have a special attribute validator, which only shows the correct given lens power to each lens. http://www.ch.discountlensshop.ch/tageslinsen-focus-dailies-90er-packung-p-42.html

 

is there any suggestion on how to upgrade to the latest PHP version which killing our system? And when upgrading will this fix any system patches to our oscommerce store?

Our would it be best to move away from oscommerce. 

 

Thanks

Steven

[MrPhil]

Well, this is what happens when you stay on one release for so long, and heavily modify it to boot. You end up effectively forking your own version of osC. You will be able to find less and less help here, and be more or less on your own to maintain your store. Before you irreversibly commit to going down that road, stop and consider whether you can take the latest osC release and make some relatively small changes to it (reusing much of your custom code) at each release to customize it to your desires. This would give you the best of both worlds: the latest osC and PHP compatibility, plus your custom capabilities. It's not trivial, but if you have adequately documented what you've done, and why you did it, you should be able to bring any new release of osC to where you want it, fairly quickly.

 

If you really want to continue manually upgrading your 2.2 store to run on the latest PHP releases (note that PHP 7 is coming Real Soon Now), you will have to find some PHP upgrade guides (to 5.4, to 5.5, to 5.6). Someone posted a list with in this forum with links to a couple of those guides, but I can't find it at the moment. I think there are guides on php.net, if you want to look around. You can also take a look at the current osC's code (it is Open Source, after all) to see what's been done there for both PHP support and new features, although if you're going to go to those lengths, if might be easier just to migrate to the latest osC release (2.3.4BS) and add your customizations back in.

 

So many site owners do a little customization here and there, and then throw up their hands and declare that it's impossible to migrate to the latest osC release. If they just had the discipline to keep track of what they've done, and why they did it, they could quickly incorporate needed changes into a new release. Of course, some have extensively rewritten osC to bend it to their will, in which case they're likely to be on their own in maintaining it from here on out.

 

 

Thinking about moving over to Magento or Prestashop

 

Then don't expect much sympathy (or help) from the osCommerce community! Besides, you're going to have to learn a whole new system and customize it from scratch.

[Jack_mcs]

@@swissperu Your best option, in my opinion, is to upgrade to the latest oscommerce version. This post explains how to upgrade. You will lose the changes you made but they can be added back in without too much work, assuming they were coded correctly for an oscommerce shop. Keep in mind that if you switch to a different cart, you will also lose those changes and recreating them will be more difficult due to the differences in the code.

 

Your shop can be made to work with php 5.5. Maybe newer versions though I've not tried that. But you will be missing out on a lot of things that the new version offers so you are not doing yourself any favors in sticking with an older version.

 

Also, I can tell you from experience that both of the shops you mention are very resource-intensive. If you are not on at least a VPS, the sites will not perform well. If your site is large and/or busy, then a dedicated server may be needed. If it makes more sense for you to switch to a different package, then you should do so. But, from the sounds of it, that would be the wrong move in your case.

[bonbec]

Hello,

 

@@MrPhil, I think it's me here : http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/408935-upgrading-oscommerce-22-rc2a-to-php-56/#entry1738490

 

http://php.net/manual/en/migration54.php

http://php.net/manual/en/migration55.php

http://php.net/manual/en/migration56.php

[♥bruyndoncx]

As a DIY coder it is possible to upgrade and make the necessary fixes for php 5.5 as I did.

 

I have made comparison between my baseline version 2.2 RC2 and the latest 2.3.4 .

I used beyond compare to understand what the changes are, and then decide to apply them or not to my codebase.

 

I found the configuration table the trickiest part.

 

On the admin side, not that much has changed except for the modular approach.

 

If you were to start with 2.3.4 BS, I would do a clean install and then add your custom code to get the functionality you want/need..

[TopFinish]

We are looking for someone who will raise our page www.topfinish.pl and pass on to another domain.

In the engine there were no changes since 2009.

2013 mistakenly copied folders on FTP.

2014 we changed PHP on the server.
 

[Dan Cole]

@@TopFinish  Rado...there is a commerical forum for posts like this.  You'll probably have better luck posting there.

 

Dan

[TopFinish]

Thanks DAN.