Wordpress database access in mobile applications

Question

Hi

I am new to wordpress and I want to create an interface for being able to access my database hosted on wordpress in my mobile applications - particularly iPhone and Android.

As these do not directly access SQL databases and would need routines on the server-side for being able to do so, what would be the best way for me to go about writing these routines/web-service calls?

Are there any wordpress plugins available for this? If not, what language should I use - php or something else?

I need some lead. Thanks.

Answer 1

Could you just run phpMyAdmin on the Wordpress server and connect with the mobile devices web browser? Or run a MySql client on the mobile? (e.g. iMy)

Answer 2

I would suggest creating a webapp (iPhone style) for the phone application and calling everything with AJAX to a PHP (Due to Wordpress running PHP) backend to validate and execute the queries. iPhone webapps dev link I haven't found any solid tutorial/resource for developing BlackBerry webapps (Please post back if you find one)

Answer 3

Instead of creating a new app, or trying to port the database, check out WP Touch, which is a Wordpress plugin/theme which will turn your wordpress install into an iPhone friendly site on iPhones.

Answer 4

See related question

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/269173

Answer 5

Perhaps you do not need to access the database directly?

Wordpress supports the XML-RPC standard interface so applications can communicate with WP across the internet, without needing access to WP's database. http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_Support

If you choose to implement your apps' using XML-RPC, all your communication will be reduced to simple HTTP calls.

To get started I suggest checking out the source code of Wordpress' own iPhone application, which utilizes XML-RPC http://iphone.wordpress.org/

Also, note that Wordpress has published an extension to the XML-RPC API that includes WP specific functions: http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_wp