Find the table for custom attribute values

Question

I’ve installed magento edition version 1.9.2.0 and added a custom attribute catalog_special_name (text field) and i want to know which table stores the custom attribute values for each product.

Answer 1

When you create a attribute for a product EAV comes in a picture. To get a value you need to know basics, which magento uses to store eav data.

For this following tables plays a important role.

1. eav_attribute

   Whenever you create a attribute this table gets entry which stores all important data which helps to make a relation, like entity_type_id,attribute_code,backend_type and many more but this are the important fields.

2. eav_entity_type

   Magento has 8 types of entity, by which, type of attribute is decided. in your case it is catalog_product

   1. customer
   2. customer_address
   3. catalog_category
   4. catalog_product
   5. order
   6. invoice
   7. creditmemo
   8. shipment

How we say it is catalog_product in your case ?

So the answer is as i said above when you create a new attribute their will be a entry in eav_attribute and if you check this entry their will be a column as entity_type_id whose value is 4 which is nothing but a catalog_product of eav_entity_type table.

eav_attribute table also has a column known as attribute_code which is nothing but a value of Attribute Code entered while making a new attribute from admin.

So as in your case we find it as a catalog_product we will look for all tables whose initial are from catalog_product you will get a table whose ending is like datetime,decimal,text,varchar,text,int etc.

catalog_product_entity is the primary table for product, our product id is nothing but a value of entity_id of this table.

How we get a desired table ?

in eav_attribute table their is a column backend_type by which we decide on which table we get a values. In your case it might be varchar. So we are going to look for a catalog_product_entity_varchar table. in this table we will search for a attribute_id and entity_id which is a product id and which we can see in admin grid and which is equal to entity_id of catalog_product_entity table.

Its time for a practical !!!

• suppose your product id is 13
• your attribute code is catalog_special_name

So in eav_attribute table we will search for a record whose attribute_code = catalog_special_name and we will get a useful information which is attribute_id,entity_type_id and backend_type.

lets say attribute_id = 138,entity_type_id = 4 and backend_type = varchar.

so as we got entity_type_id = 4 we will look in eav_entity_type table and confirm that our attribute is for catalog_product.

Then its time for catalog_product_entity_varchar table here we will search a record for whose attribute_id = 138 and entity_id = 13 which is our product id and that's it here you get a value.

Hope this helps you.

Their are still some more important table in it. For more details on EAV you can follow

• http://excellencemagentoblog.com/blog/2011/09/07/magento-eav-database-structure/
• http://inchoo.net/magento/magentos-database-layout-and-its-eav-structure/
• http://divante.co/blog/efficient-magento-code-database-flat-eav-part-1/
• http://magecert.com/eav.html

and many more..

Answer 2

Short answer ... make use of getBackendTable()

$code = 'catalog_special_name';
$attribute = Mage::getSingleton('eav/config')->getAttribute(Mage_Catalog_Model_Product::ENTITY, $code);

For text attributes echo $attribute->getBackendTable() will return ...

{prefix_}catalog_product_entity_varchar

---

Since eav_entity_type can change do not use static numbers like catalog_product = 4 or use fixed attribute IDs.

$attribute->getEntityTypeId()
$attribute->getAttributeId()

Same for entity names, instead of catalog_product you can use Mage_Catalog_Model_Product::ENTITY

If you want the filter by EAV attributes entity_type_id, do not use

$attributes = Mage::getResourceModel('eav/entity_attribute_collection')
    ->addFieldToFilter('entity_type_id', 4)

Better get correct entity_type_id from DB first ...

$entityTypeId = Mage::getModel('eav/config')
    ->getEntityType(Mage_Catalog_Model_Product::ENTITY)
    ->getEntityTypeId();

Answer 3

If you have the email of customer, you can probably try this list of queries:

1. Get the customer entity id: (Ex: 10)

   SELECT entity_id FROM customer_entity where email='user@example.com'

2. Get the attribute id of attribute code: (Ex: 225)

   SELECT attribute_id FROM eav_attribute where attribute_code='my_attribute'

3. Get the value of the customer attribute, "my_attribute":

   SELECT value FROM customer_entity_varchar where attribute_id=225 and entity_id=10

Answer 4

In the database if you use the flat tables you can find your attribute in to the catalog_product_flat_1 table.

further more all attribute are store in the eav_attribute table. you can find your attribute in this table with attribute_id and use it to get more info.