January 2007 - Development - lists.drupal.org

Links package maintainership -- mega-ping?
by Jeff Eaton 12 Jan '07

12 Jan '07

Heyyo! I've evangelized the Links module a few times, and helped with the 5.0 port, but it appears it was never branched and a release was never made. Before he was pulled away by IRL stuff, the maintainer mentioned he'd like to give me CVS access to handle the 5.0 branch. I've tried to get in contact a couple of times, but I haven't heard back for about two months. I'd really like to see this branched and ready for download when D5 hits. Would it be a faux pas for me to jump in and add myself to the CVS access list for it and take care of the DRUPAL-5 branch? --Jeff Eaton

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Reverse iconv encoding for sorting of international arrays
by Bèr Kessels 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

Hi, tagadelic has a bug[1]: when it sorts the tags based on their name, it compares two tags with strnatcasecmp. This is used to sort-order the array with tags. However, strnatcasecmp is not binary safe (grmmmbll), resulting in weird clouds. One would expect "Drive | every | état | Factory | fear " instead, état will be placed even before the tags starting with 'a'. How is this dealt with normally, I can't beleive I am the first one to run into this? Is there a reverse for drupal_convert_to_utf8($data, $encoding), so that the result is 7bit-safe and usable in strnatcasecmp? Am I looking in the complete wrong direction? [1]http://drupal.org/node/108001 -- Drupal, Ruby on Rails and Joomla! development: webschuur.com | Drupal hosting: www.sympal.nl

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Re: [development] Drupal - to use objects or arrays
by Bèr Kessels 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

Hi, Op dinsdag 9 januari 2007 22:57, schreef Doug Green: > To use objects or arrays? What is the "Drupal way"? I'd rather write code > using objects (php's stdClass). But I've run into a ton of problems using > objects on php4. My general advice is: use what suits best at that moment, but lean as much as posible towards arrays. The reason is that Drupal is moving away from objects, slowly: Some gnomes in Drupal Core have been working very hard at replacing objects for arrays last two releases. They even invented a syntax that allows arrays to look and act a little like objects array('#foo' => $bar). The reasons people chose this are both religious and pragmatic, and it is a can of worms as you can see on other branches of this thread :) So, this seems to be, or else become, the "Drupal way". Bèr -- Drupal, Ruby on Rails and Joomla! development: webschuur.com | Drupal hosting: www.sympal.nl

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'flexinode_field' project, maintainer around?
by Bèr Kessels 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

Hello, Some may have noticed that I have started to maintain flexinode more actively again. I have did a huge cleaning effort in the issue queue[1], set up a group[2] and blogged a bit about the progress[3]. The next thing on my list is to clean out the mess of contributed fields. One thing I want to do, is move them into a separate project. But. A project/cvs commit seems to exist for this already, done by someone called 'geek'[4]. This CVS commit contains no additional info (lacks README etc) and has no 'project node' on Drupal.org. Therefore I'd like to know if it is possible for me to take over that CVS directory and turn it into a real project. If you have thoughts about me moving around these field-contributions, please comment on the poll about this[5]. Thanks, Bèr [1] http://webschuur.com/publications/blogs/2007-01-02-flexinode_bug_list_now_r… [2] http://groups.drupal.org/flexinode-developers [3] http://webschuur.com/projects/flexinode [4] http://drupal.org/user/7445 [5] http://groups.drupal.org/node/2172 -- Drupal, Ruby on Rails and Joomla! development: webschuur.com | Drupal hosting: www.sympal.nl

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Is it possible to give users the right to assign roles to other users, but don't give them the right this user to edit the roles.
by Florian R 10 Jan '07

10 Jan '07

Is it possible that a user has: + The right to assign roles to other users + But not the right to edit the different roles If i give a user the permission "administer users" the just can edit the profile but can't edit the roles of a user If i give a user the permission "administer access control" the can edit the roles in the profile, but also can edit the "Access control" Thanks, Florian

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Re: [development] Drupal - to use objects or arrays
by Larry Garfield 10 Jan '07

10 Jan '07

I think the general guideline is "use what makes semantic sense at the time". A single entity is an object. (Eg, nodes, users, etc.) A list of things is an array. A list of entities is an array of objects. When you get into really complex data structures, like FAPI, then I think deeply-nested arrays are easier to work with and more predictable (esp. between PHP 4 and PHP 5) than deeply-nested objects. You can have an object one of whose properties is a complex nested array (Nodes created with CCK, esp. in Drupal 5, do that). There's no hard rule, but I think "what makes semantic sense when writing it" is the guideline. Oh yes, and when iterating over records from a database where it really doesn't make a difference, using db_fetch_object() seems more common than db_fetch_array(), simply because there's fewer funky characters involved with objects than arrays. :-) On Tuesday 09 January 2007 3:57 pm, Doug Green wrote: > To use objects or arrays? What is the "Drupal way"? I'd rather write code > using objects (php's stdClass). But I've run into a ton of problems using > objects on php4. > > The CiviCRM folks have this handy guide for php5 -> php4: > > > > http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Writing+PHP4+Compatible+code > > > > But even after using it, I'm having difficulties. I'm starting to conclude > that I should convert all my object references to arrays. I only see a > couple of object references in core, and none to anything complicated > (arrays of objects, objects pointing to objects, object elements of arrays > of objects, etc). > > > > Doug Green > > www.douggreenconsulting.com <http://www.douggreenconsulting.com/> > > www.civicactions.com > > > > Changing the world one node at a time! -- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry(a)garfieldtech.com ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson

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Re: [development] Drupal - to use objects or arrays
by George Kappel 09 Jan '07

09 Jan '07

Based on what I have seen you are better off using non-objects for things you want to cache. As an example there is a lot less overhead when using APC with arrays vs objects To use objects or arrays? What is the "Drupal way"? I'd rather write code using objects (php's stdClass). But I've run into a ton of problems using objects on php4. The CiviCRM folks have this handy guide for php5 -> php4: http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Writing+PHP4+Compatible+code But even after using it, I'm having difficulties. I'm starting to conclude that I should convert all my object references to arrays. I only see a couple of object references in core, and none to anything complicated (arrays of objects, objects pointing to objects, object elements of arrays of objects, etc). Doug Green www.douggreenconsulting.com <http://www.douggreenconsulting.com/> www.civicactions.com Changing the world one node at a time!

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How to represent event organizers?
by Leo Burd 09 Jan '07

09 Jan '07

Hello there, I hope this is the best list to present my question... I wonder what is the best way to represent event organizers in Drupal. Ideally, I would like to be able to list all the events organized by a certain user and/or group. Has anyone already implemented this functionality somewhere? Suggestions would be very welcome!! Thanks in advance, .L.

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Re: [development] Rename *_load and friends
by Metzler, David 09 Jan '07

09 Jan '07

I agree with James on this. There's something elegantly simple about hook_something turns into module_something. How many times something gets fired and for how many modules is something that part of the definition of an api subject to change. I don't see value in tying too much weight to what's called a hook and what's not called a hook. And I don't want to change my intro to teaching module development from "Writing drupal modules is as easy implementing the desired functions in the drupal api that begin with 'hook_'". I also want to see us set the example of having contributed apis start inventing new ways to describe hooks. I'd rather see us all channel the energy into updating the docs for the hooks to be more clear about when those events fire, and for what purpose they are for. Something like: hook_load - use this hook to define the database load event for implementing a new content type in a module. See hook_node_api if you're looking to extend an existing content type. hook_node_api - used to add value to a node implemented by another module. See hook_load ($op='load') if you're looking to define a new content type. We'd modify these docs by submitting core patches, yes? The docs for hook_nodeapi are really good about describing when they should be used. Perhaps we just need to clarify in hook_load* when they should be used. I'm done on this topic.... Dave -----Original Message----- From: development-bounces(a)drupal.org [mailto:development-bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of James Walker Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 8:08 AM To: development(a)drupal.org Subject: Re: [development] Rename *_load and friends On 1/6/07 1:22 AM, Karoly Negyesi wrote: > Hi, > > We have had a discussion about this already under a different subject. > > My opinion here is that hook_foo is something that gets implemented by N > modules and at call time these are called, one after the other. > hook_menu , hook_form_alter etc etc Note that 'hook' is always replaced > by the module name. > > Despite hook_load is called a hook, it's a different animal: at call > time, only one implementation is called. Not to mention that since we > have a node information hook, 'hook' is not necessarily replaced by the > module name. > > Larry Garfield suggested calling these method_load, method_view and so > on. This I find a good idea and now would like to get opinions on this > name. I'm not sure I know why they need different names, and I'm not sure where you draw the line. While I absolutely am +1 for keeping hook_load, etc in addition to hook_nodeapi - I don't know that calling some method_* vs. hook_* really brings all that much clarity. We use "hooks" for *lots* of different things - sometimes pass by reference sometimes by value, with all kinds of different expected return values and behaviours. I don't know how much this single distinction helps. Not to mention, I think we can disappear into a dark hole arguing the semantics (i.e. in OO & AO programming, they're all just called "methods" anyway). The nice thing about the 'hook' name (whether invented or otherwise) is it's easy to teach new developers how hooks relate to the code their looking at, and further that when you see module_foo() you can find full documentation on api.drupal.org by searching for hook_foo. I've done several training sessions now and have not run into a whole lot of confusion from the naming. Fact is, they're not really "methods" - reusing a name with a common, different meaning for most developers may well just add confusion. that's my $0.02 anyway. -- James Walker :: http://walkah.net/ :: xmpp:walkah@walkah.net

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Hook ordering
by Karoly Negyesi 09 Jan '07

09 Jan '07

Hi, Reading the hook_nodeapi thread... In Drupal 6 I would like to see a hook registry -- mostly autodiscovered, but if you want ordering, then you can say "my implementation of hook_nodeapi is to be run before module this,that,foor,bar". Available in my sandbox, weight.php . It's trivial to extend this capatibility to packages as well, so that if you ask to be run before !views then you will run before all modules that belong to the views package. All nice and dandy. But, the next step would be to request for "I want to be the first for hook_foo". What am I to do if two module asks for this? Die a horrible death? Disable the offending modules? This code, quite obviously will run on the modules page. Regards NK Ps. Extending hook registry to hook#op is also in the plans.

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