What is the best method to export local WordPress installation and import to live server?

I’ve been building a website using WordPress for the couple of weeks on my localhost. My plan was to export it when I’m done and then import it onto the live server.

Today I found out a couple of things:

1. WordPress’ Export tool only exports what’s in the database, nothing else. It doesn’t export images, etc. This could be easily remedied by simply copy pasting the files, but I was hoping for a complete solution where a tool will export EVERYTHING into a single zip file and then import than zip file onto live server to basically create an identical clone.

2. The paths that is created within the XML file generated by the Export tool uses absolute paths, and this is especially troublesome. Example:

   http://localhost/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/GSI-70-Automated-OAE-Screener.jpg

I haven’t tested it, but I imagine that when I import this XML onto my live server WordPress will look for a file at http://localhost/… and that’s just not gonna work of course. It would work if the paths are relative paths.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Ideas? Solutions?

Thanks a lot!

I’ve seen a bunch of ways of doing this, but here are a couple:

1. Use a plugin, like BackupBuddy (paid): http://pluginbuddy.com/purchase/backupbuddy/

2. Export your whole DB using phpMyAdmin and run a search-and-replace tool that properly deals with the serialized data, e.g. https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/ (I use this, and it works just fine). Then on the live server, create an empty DB and import this modified sql dump.

There was also a GSOC project this year for moving sites, called WordPress Move. Could work, not sure though: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-move/