Drupal module development
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This document provides an overview of Drupal module development. It discusses Drupal architecture and the different types of modules, including core, contributed, and custom modules. It also covers the key components of a module like the .info, .module, and .inc files. The document introduces hooks and explains how they allow modules to extend Drupal's functionality by implementing callback functions. It provides examples of major hooks like hook_permission, hook_menu, and hook_nodeapi. Finally, it lists some common Drupal API functions that can be used when building custom modules.
Drupal module development
- 1. Drupal Module Development “Hands-on” Amit Vyas http://drupal.org/user/246119 Rachit Gupta https://drupal.org/user/403301
- 2. Overview • Drupal Architecture • Types of Drupal Modules • Module Architecture • Hooks • Hands On Module
- 3. Drupal Architecture Technology Stack L(/W)AMP Code Base (Drupal 7) Database
- 4. Operating System Web Server Language Database Abstraction Layer Technology Stack Database 4
- 5. Types of Drupal Modules Core Modules Contributed Modules Custom Modules
- 6. Core Modules • Block: Restricted to web administrator access only. • Filter: Authorized users and web administrators can choose from either Filtered or Full HTML Input formats. • Node: Responsible for content. • System: Responsible for cron and caching. Primary Web Site Admin. only. • User: User Management, Roles, Permissions. Web administrator access only. 6
- 7. Contributed Modules There are very high chances that what you are looking for has already been developed http://drupal.org/project/Modules http://drupalmodules.com/module-finder Google -> site:drupal.org/project <search keywords> -cvs
- 8. No Luck!!
- 9. Time to get hands dirty !! How?
- 10. Custom Modules • To extend functionality of contributed modules. • To build features that are specific to your site. • To build features that are not available through core or contributed modules. 10
- 11. Make sure to look inside related modules Related => Modules that do things which are only slightly different or slightly similar to the things that you wound want your module to do.
- 12. Module Architecture “The building blocks of a module” The .info file The .install file The .module file The .inc file
- 13. .info file • Drupal uses .info files (aka, "dot info files") to store metadata about themes and modules. Various Drupal components use the information in this file for module management. • The .info file should have the same name as the .module file and reside in the same directory. For example, if our module is named drupal_training.module then your .info file should be named drupal_training.info. 13
- 14. example.info File name = “Drupal Training” description = “Module for Drupal Training Day” core = 7.x package = “Training” name (Required) The displayed name of your module. It should follow the Drupal capitalization standard: only the first letter of the first word is capitalized ("Example module"). Spaces are allowed as the name is used mainly for the display purposes. description (Required) A short, preferably one line description that will tell the administrator what this module does on the module administration page. core (Required) The version of Drupal that your module is for. For Drupal 6 this would be 6.x, Drupal 7 would be 7.x, etc. 14
- 15. .inc file • When Drupal loads a page, it loads all the .modules files of all the active/enabled modules. • If you have .inc (aka dot inc) file then .module will be loaded when page loads BUT the inc file will not be loaded • .inc file will be loaded for the specific page/path • .inc file helps to reduce code loaded on a specific page/path • hook_menu allows you to specify a .inc file for a specific path 15
- 16. Introduction to Hooks What are hooks? Why should I care? 16
- 17. What are hooks? • A hook is really nothing more than a function that matches the pattern of a call to the module functions . • You can say that hook is a simple callback function that is called on specific events. • Pattern modulename_hookname() • For example, if you want to do some operation on user login, say sending an email to administrator on user logins into the site, then no need to change the code in user module. • Implement hook_user on your own module say “alert” by defining function in your module file called alert_user and write code to send an email to administrator here. 17
- 18. Why should I care? • Modules Extends it’s functionality through hook system. • One module communicates through other module through hooks. • The Hooks API provides a common naming standard for hooks, allowing developers to implement them in custom modules without needing to engage in extensive programming. • The Hooks API allows developers to create their own hooks that other modules can access, that leverage the same techniques used in core Drupal. • Many hooks are state aware, and operate differently depending on what Drupal is actually doing when the hook is triggered. 18
- 20. hook_menu Define menu items and page callbacks.
- 21. Modify an existing form hook_form_alter
- 22. Node operations “The king of all hooks” hook_nodeapi
- 23. Major hooks http://api.drupal.org/api/function/hook_user Gotcha: Not implementing the case delete. Especially dangerous when modules own tables have user related data. Just do it in the memory of node/8 http://api.drupal.org/api/function/hook_cron http://api.drupal.org/api/function/hook_block
- 24. Tools we can use… DATABASE API http://api.drupal.org/api/function/drupal_write_records http://api.drupal.org/api/function/user_roles http://api.drupal.org/api/function/format_interval http://api.drupal.org/api/function/user_multiple_role_edit http://api.drupal.org/api/function/user_load http://api.drupal.org/api/function/drupal_mail http://api.drupal.org/api/function/watchdog ~ 2200 more