How to export and import Drupal 7 nodes

By Joel Stein on May 7, 2014

There are lots of ways to export configuration from one Drupal site and import into another; however, there are few ways to do the same with content. Here’s a quick tip which has worked well for me.

I’ve tried several contrib modules to export content from one site and import into another, with varying levels of success, such as Node export and UUID Features. However, in my use cases, these solutions created more problems than they solve.

For example, on one project I have to create Webform nodes in a development environment, and then export these into code so they can be deployed upstream. After wrestling with the modules above, I wrote a simple script you can execute at /devel/php:

// Enter node NID to export.
$nid = 55;

// Use Drupal's export utility to convert the object to code.
include_once DRUPAL_ROOT . '/includes/utility.inc';
$export = drupal_var_export(node_load($nid));

// Strip node NIDs and VIDs, so it imports cleanly.
$export = preg_replace("/'(n|v)id' => '?\d+'?,/", "'$1id' => NULL,", $export);

// Print code needed to import node.
dpm('$node = ' . $export . ';' . "\n" . 'node_save($node);');

You can then include the displayed code in your .install file. It will create the node, and let Drupal auto-populate the NID and VID.