Cottleston Pie

It surprises me how frequently people mistakenly comment on the wrong entry, but though I don't have many comments here, it has happened more than once.

It is mystifying why one cannot move a comment to a different Entry with the Movable Type application (mt.cgi).

Fortunately, I chose to use external SQL database support rather than the built-in support for Berkeley DB. If I hadn't, I don't know how I would be able to move a comment.

So, my data is in a MySQL database. Given a choice, I'd prefer PostgreSQL, but MySQL is what was available and it serves well enough.

Let me document what I did for myself and anyone else in a similar straight.

1. Connect to the server:

   % mysql -h <SQL-db-hostname> -u <id> -D <db-name> -p
   

2. Identify comment

   In this case, this was the only comment from a particular IP number:

   mysql> SELECT comment_id,comment_blog_id,comment_entry_id,comment_ip,comment_email FROM mt_comment WHERE comment_ip = '10.0.0.182';
   +------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------+---------------------+
   | comment_id | comment_blog_id | comment_entry_id | comment_ip     | comment_email       |
   +------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------+---------------------+
   |         36 |               1 |               16 | 10.0.0.182     | kom48ff84@yahoo.com |
   +------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------+---------------------+
   

3. Change the comment_entry_id. In this case, moving from Entry 16 to 27:

   mysql> UPDATE mt_comment SET comment_entry_id = 27 WHERE comment_ip = '10.0.0.182';
   Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
   Rows matched: 1  Changed: 1  Warnings: 0
   

4. Check the result:

   mysql> SELECT comment_id,comment_blog_id,comment_entry_id,comment_ip,comment_email  FROM mt_comment WHERE comment_ip = '10.0.0.182';
   +------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------+---------------------+
   | comment_id | comment_blog_id | comment_entry_id | comment_ip     | comment_email       |
   +------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------+---------------------+
   |         36 |               1 |               27 | 10.0.0.182     | kom48ff84@yahoo.com |
   +------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------+---------------------+
   

5. Rebuild pages.