2 Sites, 1 DB, Possible?

Yup, it’s easy. In each site’s “wpconfig.php” file, set the table prefix to some unique value, other than the default “wp_” value. Then both (or all 10 in my case) blogs can use the same database, but remain completely independent from each other. So one blog might use “blog1_” as a prefix, the other would use “blog2_” for the prefix. Capiche?

There is also a multi-user version of WordPress being developed at http://mu.wordpress.org (I think that’s the addy) that might cover your needs as well, but I don’t know what it’s status is.

Gotcha.

It’s easy enough to point two domains to the same WP install, right up until a link is clicked. Then the address would revert to whatever domain is set in the DB.

The other way would be to use Javascript and the DOM. A plugin could be written to insert a script that captures MouseDown events (or just modify the “header.php” page manually in 1.5, or “index.php” in 1.2x). If the event is fired on a link, the script would check for the domain name that exists in the WP database. If it matches, it would replace that domain with the other one. The operation would be transparent to the user, except that the address that shows in the status bar would be to whatever domain was in the DB – unless the Javascript also captured MouseOver events and set the statusbar itself with the replacement domain. In either case, the address bar at the top would show whatever domain name the user used to access the site.

And before anyone says it can’t be done, I’ve done things very similar (but not for a while). It should work in any DOM-compliant browser that has Javascript enabled. My script simply attached a querystring with the current session ID to any link that was local to the site. I doubt I still have a copy anywhere (this was a couple years ago), but I remember the technique.

Do as RustIndy says above, but edit each sites wp-settings.php around line 40 or so, you’ll see the references for each table name. You can hard code those so that they both point to the same tables for everything except the options table. If you want each site to have its own users, both sites will have to have their own users table, comments table, and post2cat table.

now it gets interesting
look at the file /wp-includes/wp-db.php
it defines the wpdb class as

class wpdb {

var $show_errors = true;
var $num_queries = 0;
var $last_query;
var $col_info;
var $queries;

// Our tables
var $posts;
var $users;
var $categories;
var $post2cat;
var $comments;
var $links;
var $linkcategories;
var $options;
var $optiontypes;
var $optionvalues;
var $optiongroups;
var $optiongroup_options;
var $postmeta;

// ==================================================================
// DB Constructor – connects to the server and selects a database

function wpdb($dbuser, $dbpassword, $dbname, $dbhost) {
$this->dbh = @mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpassword);
..
..
..
..

and in the last line we have the entire object being equated with the connection

$wpdb = new wpdb(DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_NAME, DB_HOST);

now what we need to do is that only for the member $wpdb.$options needs to be equated with a new connection to the localhost server while we globally define the $host variable to be on a remote server from which the database has to be picked up

either we create a new class “$test” with only one member $options and then we connect the object of this class to the local server while we let the database connectionfor $wpdb object be with the remote server. and then we equate the $ options member eg. $wpdb.$options = = $test.$options
would that work? can class members be directly equated in php? can somebody with a thorough knowledge please help?

that again comes back to the same point, actually what we need to do here is we need to reference tables like:

$wpdb->options = LOCALHOST.’options’;
$wpdb->posts = REMOTEHOST.’posts’;
$wpdb->users = REMOTEHOST.’users’;
$wpdb->categories = REMOTEHOST.’categories’;
$wpdb->post2cat = REMOTEHOST.’post2cat’;
$wpdb->comments = REMOTEHOST.’comments’;
$wpdb->links = REMOTEHOST.’links’;
$wpdb->linkcategories = REMOTEHOST.’linkcategories’;
$wpdb->postmeta = REMOTEHOST.’postmeta’;

Actually what we need to do {the basic problem}, is to retrieve the options from a localhost sql server while we retrieve the rest of the tables from a database located at a remote host sql server
that way we can have the same blog at two different URL’s, {the options table stores the URL of the blog, so only the options table needs to be different}

the method u described shall enable multiple blogs within the same database on the same MySQL server, but the problem here is that
1) There are two separate websites running on two different servers
2) both websites run a separate MySQL server with different address
3) we need the same blog on both websites

so we designed
website1: picks up the database from the MySQL server of website1

website2: picks up the database EXCEPT the OPTIONS table from sql server of website1, and also picks up the options table from the sql server of website2

because the options table stores the blog URL, so it needs to be different for both sites.

MY GOD, THIS IS GETTING VERY CONFUZING!!!!!

okie, i got ur point, brentrv.
its been an interesting discussion we had here. i’ll do this and shall get back to this thread, please do bookmark this place and watch it for a couple of days
thanks……
* but what about cross references? if other tables refer to the options table then? the name of the options table is different for both the cases, but the rest of the tables are common, so the resto of the tables shall refer to the options table by only one name even though we might add another options table under a different name
EDIT: i guess there wont be any cross references for the options table, otherwise you would have faced problems running those 500 blogs. thanks for the insight, now I shall try it out, I shall most probably get a new domain in a day or two, and then I shall run a common blog on both my domains.