Index

Drupal Module: Data Common Api

Author: Aaron Klump sourcecode@intheloftstudios.com

Summary

Provide a simple and consistent means to interact programatically with entity data, form submissions and other Drupal data across projects and major versions.

You may also visit the project page on Drupal.org.

Requirements

Installation

  1. Install as usual, see http://drupal.org/node/70151 for further information.
  2. If you are not using composer to manage your site, you must add this module's composer.json file to the root merge-plugin see this link for more info.

Configuration

  1. No configuration is necessary; but the module won't do anything unless you utilitze it's functions.

Suggested Use

More code examples are available if you enable the Advanced Help module.

Read Entities

// Create a getter for node entities
$n = data_api('node');

// Load a node entity
$node = node_load(4503);

// Use the getter to pull the first name or default.
// Do not include the language key; language is determined automatically.
$vars['name'] = $n->get($node, 'field_first_name.0.value', '{first name}');

// You can resuse the node getter with a new node.  The node getter can be reused as long as the entity type doesn't change.
$node = node_load(345);
$vars['name'] = $n->get($node, 'field_first_name.0.value', '{first name}');

// But to pull data from a different entity type, you can either create a new getter for user entities...
$u = data_api('user');

//... or just reassign the entity type of the original getter to 'user'.
$n->setEntityType('user');
$vars['mail'] = $n->get($GLOBALS['user'], 'mail', '{missing email}');

Set entities

// Load a comment entity
$comment = comment_load(1);

// Change the body value in the object only.
data_api('comment')->set($comment, 'comment_body.0.value', 'lorem', []);

// Save the comment to the database
comment_save($comment);

Arrays and objects

This will also work on native arrays and objects, and offers a means of supplying defaults with minium code. For more information go here.

// Create a global getter that uses no entity type.
$g = data_api();

// Using a standard array...
$array = array('do' => array('re', 'mi'));

// Access it's elements.
print $g->get($array, 'do.0', 'none'); // === 're'
print $g->get($array, 'do.1', 'none'); // === 'mi'
print $g->get($array, 'do.2', 'none'); // === 'none'; the default

// Set a deep object
$object = new \stdClass;
$g->set($object, 'do.re.mi.fa.so', 'laaaa');

... $object->do->re->mi->fa->so === 'laaaa'

And form submissions...

$value = data_api()->get($form_state, 'values.summary', 'none');

Use callback to load an entity reference

The fourth argument is a callable that receives the value and the default, so you can post process the value, e.g.,

$related_node = data_api('node')->get($node, 'field_related_node.0.nid', null, function ($nid, $defaultValue) {
    return $nid ? node_load($nid) : $defaultValue;
});

Design Decisions/Rationale

Roadmap/Drupal 8

I'm planning a Drupal 8 version which will follow the same patterns so you do not have to relearn a new api.

Contact