First Steps in Drupal Code Driven Development

DROPS THAT GROW THE WEB.

First Steps in Code Driven Development
A 100% database-free development workﬂow.

Antonio De Marco
antonio@nuvole.org

Major pitfalls

• Not ideal for a distributed team
• Makes difﬁcult to push settings to production
• Content and settings are mixed in one db dump
• Easy to lose control

Major beneﬁt

• Code can be versioned
• Conﬂicts can be solved
• Content and settings are separated
• Easy to push updates to production

What the Features module is all about?

Have you noticed that your features don't
necessarily depend from the Features
module?

Features is a “hook_default()” generator.

CCK: hook_content_default_fields()
Contexts: hook_context_default_contexts()
Fieldgroups: hook_fieldgroup_default_groups()
Filters: hook_filter_default_formats()
Imagecache: hook_imagecache_default_presets()
Menu: hook_menu_default_items()
Node type: hook_node_info()
Permissions: hook_user_default_permissions()
Views: hook_views_default_views()

/**
* Helper to implementation of hook_views_default_views().
*/
function _atrium_views_default_views() {
$views = array();

// Exported view: atrium_book_current
$view = new view;
$view->name = 'atrium_book_current';
$view->description = 'Atrium: book: helper';
$view->tag = 'atrium';
...

/**
* Helper to implementation of hook_content_default_fields().
*/
function _atrium_blog_content_default_fields() {
$fields = array();

// Exported field: field_referenced_book_page
$fields[] = array(
'field_name' => 'field_referenced_book_page',
'type_name' => 'blog',
'display_settings' => array(
...

Hook helpers are then called from within your feature’s hooks.

/**
* Implementation of hook_content_default_fields().
*/
function atrium_blog_content_default_fields() {
module_load_include('inc', 'atrium_blog', 'atrium_blog.defaults');
$args = func_get_args();
return call_user_func_array('_atrium_blog_content_default_fields', $args);
}

/**
* Implementation of hook_views_default_views().
*/
function atrium_views_default_views() {
module_load_include('inc', 'atrium', 'atrium.features.views');
$args = func_get_args();
return call_user_func_array('_atrium_views_default_views', $args);
}

Do your tables use strings as primary keys?


Yes?


Yes? Really?


Yes? Really? Great! Then...

Meet CTools Export plugin
a.k.a. Get magic by altering your module's schema

An example: Strongarm and variables export.

/**
* Implementation of hook_schema_alter().
* Makes the variables table usable by ctools' export.inc.
*/
function strongarm_schema_alter(&$schema) {
$schema['variable']['export'] = array(
'key' => 'name',
'identifier' => 'strongarm',
'default hook' => 'strongarm',
'api' => array(
'owner' => 'strongarm',
'api' => 'strongarm',
'minimum_version' => 1,
'current_version' => 1,
),
);
$schema['variable']['fields']['value']['serialize'] = TRUE;
}

In your .info ﬁle add:

features[variable][] = "theme_default"

And you will get:

/**
* Helper to implementation of hook_strongarm().
*/
function _your_module_strongarm() {
$export = array();
$strongarm = new stdClass;
$strongarm->disabled = FALSE;
$strongarm->api_version = 1;
$strongarm->name = 'theme_default';
$strongarm->value = 'ginkgo';

$export['theme_default'] = $strongarm;
return $export;
}

Features keeps track of DB changes.

$ # Dump your changes into code.
$ drush features-update feature_name

$ # Restore your changes into the db.
$ drush features-revert feature_name

Want to add a component to the a feature?

Want to add a component to the a feature?

1. add it to your feature_name.info
2. $ drush features-update feature_name

Want to remove a component to the a feature?

Want to remove a component to the a feature?

1. remove it from your feature_name.info
2. $ drush features-update feature_name

Code conventions for a better world.

Feature namespace
# Feature News (feature_news)

Views feature_news_blocks
feature_news_list
feature_news_node
feature_news_taxonomy

Contexts feature_news_front
feature_news_list

Openlayers Presets feature_news_small_map
feature_news_big_map

Content type namespace
# News (news)

CCK Fields field_news_pictures
field_news_links

Imagecache Presets news-s
news-m
news-l
news-portrait

Tip:

Never share ﬁelds across several content types unless
you have really good reasons to do so.

If you do so you will make your features hardly re-usable.

Meet your friends hook_install() and hook_update_N()

The Controller Feature
a.k.a. a feature to rule them all

Create Menus

/**
* Implementation of hook_install()
*/
function feature_controller_install() {

db_query("INSERT INTO {menu_custom} (menu_name, title, description)
VALUES ('%s', '%s', '%s')",
'menu-content',
'Content',
'Manage your site content.');

}

Create Menu Items
/**
*/

$item['link_title'] = t('Home');
$item['link_path'] = '<front>';
$item['menu_name'] = 'primary-links';
$item['weight'] = -10;
menu_link_save($item);

}

Do all kind of dirty things...

/**
*/

// Add OpenID to admin user
db_query("INSERT INTO {authmap} (uid, authname, module)
VALUES(1, 'http://nuvole.myopenid.com/', 'openid')");

// Weight feature_controller to come after other modules -- in particular, admin.
db_query("UPDATE {system}
SET weight = 1
WHERE name = 'feature_controller' AND type = 'module'");
}

hook_update_N()
/**
* Disabling comment module
*/
function feature_controller_update_6001() {
$return = array();
$modules = array('comment');
module_disable($modules);
$return[] = array('success' => TRUE,
'query' => 'Disabling modules: '.
implode(', ', $modules));
return $return;
}

hook_update_N()
/**
* Removing contributor role
*/
function feature_controller_update_6002() {
$return = array();
$role_name = 'contributor';
$result = db_query("SELECT rid FROM {role} WHERE name='%s'", $role_name);
while ($role = db_fetch_object($result)) {
$rid = $role->rid;
$return[] = update_sql("DELETE FROM {role} WHERE rid = '$rid'");
$return[] = update_sql("DELETE FROM {users_roles} WHERE rid = '$rid'");
}
return $return;
}

hook_install()

/**
*/

feature_controller_update_6001();
feature_controller_update_6002();

}

Features architecture: what goes where.

Views

GROUP BY Arguments, Filters.

Context

Same context different reactions.

feature_controller_frontpage: News block, Events block

That’s bad...

Context

Different contexts share the same conditions.

feature_news_frontpage: News block
feature_events_frontpage: Events block

That’s Good!

Extending features

Are we ready?
Does it make sense?

DROPS THAT GROW THE WEB.

Thank You.
http://nuvole.org
@nuvoleweb
#codepower

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