Tips and tricks

Where to find menus in wordpress database

Menu by itself is a taxonomy in the different knownhost wordpress plans. It means that you can find all menus in wp_terms table, by running following query:

SELECT * 
  FROM wp_terms AS t
  LEFT JOIN wp_term_taxonomy AS tt ON tt.term_id = t.term_id
 WHERE tt.taxonomy = 'nav_menu';

Menu item is custom post type in WP. They are stored in wp_posts table. You can find all of them by using this query:

SELECT * 
  FROM wp_posts 
 WHERE post_type = 'nav_menu_item';

Relations between menus and menu items are stored in wp_term_relationships table. To find all items of specific menu you can use this query:

SELECT p.* 
  FROM wp_posts AS p 
  LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships AS tr ON tr.object_id = p.ID
  LEFT JOIN wp_term_taxonomy AS tt ON tt.term_taxonomy_id = tr.term_taxonomy_id
 WHERE p.post_type = 'nav_menu_item'
   AND tt.term_id = /*your menu ID*/;

Information about currently select menu is located in wp_options table as serialized PHP array. For example if we use TwentyEleven theme, then we will have a record in wp_options table with option_name column equals to theme_mod_twentyeleven and option_value column equals to ...;s:18:"nav_menu_locations";a:1:{s:7:"primary";i:103;}}. Here you can see that menu with term_id equals to 103 is currently selected as "primary" menu.

The key principle here is that we always have separate options record for each WP theme. Such options have the same name structure: theme_mods_{your-theme-name}.

P.S.: To change current menu in the admin panel, just go to Appearance » Menus page and select menu you need in Theme Locations meta box:

enter image description here

Source: Eugene Manuilov

on stackoverflow

Notes from me ( digitalzoomstudio )

Okay, this is correct, but incomplete; missing a few key items. For example, the pages / posts on which each item is stored. When trying to create a menu from php, this info is not enough because we need to link each post ( nav_menu_item type ) to page’s link.

This info is found in wp_postmeta table, containing info of each menu item – like nav_menu_item type ( custom / page ) or custom link etc. :

meta_id, post_id, option_name

1233 208 _menu_item_url
1232 208 _menu_item_xfn
1231 208 _menu_item_classes a:1:{i:0;s:0:””;}
1230 208 _menu_item_target
1229 208 _menu_item_object page
1228 208 _menu_item_object_id 179
1227 208 _menu_item_menu_item_parent 0
1226 208 _menu_item_type post_type
{"type":"main_options","images_arr":"'#ffffff'","enable_ajax":"off","soundcloud_apikey":"","bg_isparallax":"off","bg_slideshow_time":"0","bg_transition":"slidedown","site_url":"https:\/\/digitalzoomstudio.net","theme_url":"https:\/\/digitalzoomstudio.net\/wp-content\/themes\/qucreative\/","blur_ammount":"26","width_column":"50","width_section_bg":"","width_gap":"30","border_width":"0","border_color":"#ffffff","translate_cancel_comment":"Cancel reply","translate_leave_a_comment":"Leave a comment","translate_leave_a_comment_to":"Leave a comment to","is_customize_preview":"off","width_blur_margin":"30","gallery_w_thumbs_autoplay_videos":"off","content_enviroment_opacity":"30","menu_enviroment_opacity":"70","base_url":"https:\/\/digitalzoomstudio.net"}
{"type":"darkfull"}