Where to find menus in wordpress database
Menu by itself is a taxonomy in WP. 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:
Source: Eugene Manuilov
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 |