Get Tracking Information from Magento via Order Number

I work in Magento frequently. Here’s a pretty straight forward query to get the core shipping information out of  in Magento for  v 1.4.1 (will not work pre 1.4x as all the tables changed – no really, thanks)

select  shp.number, shp.title, shp.carrier_code, shp.updated_at, flt.shipping_description
 from `magento_store`.`sales_flat_order` as flt
 left join `magento_store`.`sales_flat_shipment_track` as shp
 on (flt.entity_id = shp.order_id)
 where flt.increment_id = '$order_id';

I use a WordPress install to interface with the Magento DB to stress server less.

Don’t forget that the 1.4x shipping API for Magento is B-U-S-T-E-D as of this writing. Here is the link I found:

http://magebase.com/magento-tutorials/shipment-api-in-magento-1-4-1-broken/

If you are considering working with Magento you must understand that the community version is out there to crowd source debugging. Living on the Magento forums for a long while now I see a specific pattern of disengagement from the Magento development team in addressing major issues. I am sure they would speak to the contrary.