May 2008 - Development - lists.drupal.org

Re: [development] cron woes - drupal_cron_cleanup() kills my, cronjob while it's still running...
by Arthur Richards 26 May '08

26 May '08

Andrew, Thanks - I've already done that though. In fact, I have turned the time limit off (set_time_limit(0)). I don't think the problem is the size or duration of my scripts - maybe it is, but the watchdog message is a product of drupal_cron_cleanup, which I thought isn't supposed to be called until everything's done running, since it's called with register_shutdown_function() in drupal_cron(). I can't figure out what could be getting drupal_cron_cleanup to execute before my cron scripts finish. Message: 9 Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 17:41:53 -0700 From: "andrew morton" <drewish(a)katherinehouse.com> Subject: Re: [development] cron woes - drupal_cron_cleanup() kills my cronjob while it's still running... To: development(a)drupal.org Message-ID: <fab053ce0805231741h5a8cb7e6s74919a45f6e498fd(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 5:23 PM, Arthur Richards <awjrichards(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > I'm running into problems where in the midst of my cronjob > > executing, drupal_cron_cleanup() seems to get called somehow - the error > > 'Cron run exceeded the time limit and was aborted' appears in watchdog. > > Does anyone have any idea what's going on and/or how I can prevent this? > I think your best bet would be to try to break your task up into smaller chunks and call cron more frequently. You could also try extending PHP's script timeout limit (http://php.net/set_time_limit) andrew

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New Forms API tutorial
by Steve Dondley 25 May '08

25 May '08

I wrote a new Forms API tutorial If you know something about Forms API, feedback on http://drupal.org/node/262422 would be appreciated. Thanks. -- Prometheus Labor Communications, Inc. http://prometheuslabor.com 413-572-1300 Communicate or Die: American Labor Unions and the Internet http://communicateordie.com

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postprocess theme in Drupal 6?
by Dave Cohen 24 May '08

24 May '08

I'd like to override theme_page() with the following logic: first use the page.tpl.php template, as the theme normally would; then, do some special processing to the output of the template. In drupal 5 this was easy enough, in drupal 6 I can't figure out how. If you can help, please respond to http://drupal.org/node/262085. (Sorry to bother the devel list with what might be considered a support question, but I'm stumped.)

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cron woes - drupal_cron_cleanup() kills my cronjob while it's still running...
by Arthur Richards 24 May '08

24 May '08

I am working a module that makes use of cron to fetch large amounts of 3rd party data, and then turns that data into nodes and sticks it all into the drupal db. Each time the module goes and fetches this data takes a large amount of time, and my module invokes a number of different scripts to help handle the data depending on where it's coming from. I'm running into problems where in the midst of my cronjob executing, drupal_cron_cleanup() seems to get called somehow - the error 'Cron run exceeded the time limit and was aborted' appears in watchdog. Does anyone have any idea what's going on and/or how I can prevent this? Thanks so much, Arthur

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Similar Articles
by Sean Wingert 22 May '08

22 May '08

Does anyone know a 5.x way of creating a "similar articles" section (panels2?) like they do on theonion.com? There is a nice contributed module called similar but it displays items in a block (how do I show that block in panels2?), and I want it to look like theonion.com. Thanks! Sean

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decoupling form validation from error reporting and "actions" OR different use case for DANGEROUS_SKIP_CHECK
by Ivan Sergio Borgonovo 21 May '08

21 May '08

I've a process, a series of forms. Available values in different steps depends on previously inserted data. Multi-step forms are not suited, and I don't think they could solve the problem I'm going to illustrate. I want bookmarkable steps and I want the customer care to be able to reproduce what the user see. I'd consider *possible* that a user open another browser window and change the previous choices while it is in the middle of the process. Since the forms are dynamically built, when a $form is "regenerated" for submission it may be different from the one that was shown to the user. At this point form validation kick in and says "An illegal choice has been detected..." Without DANGEROUS_SKIP_CHECK I have no choice to handle the problem graciously. 1) I may want to let the process come to an end and then check for coherency of the inserted values and then kick the user at the beginning of the process or 2) I may kick him at the beginning of the process as soon as I detect some problem. 3) I may do other stuff other than re-displaying the form with a general error message. Even with DANGEROUS_SKIP_CHECK I see no clear way to recycle the FAPI validation code and go with the 2) or 3) path. _validate accept $form and $form_values or $form_state, but I can't see any place where I could intercept the errors set by drupal_validate_form, form_validate, form_error... With DANGEROUS_SKIP_CHECK I can at least let FAPI ignore the errors and then _validate by my own and act accordingly to my needs That would imply some code duplication since I'll cut&paste part of FAPI validation and just change the form_error part. Without DANGEROUS_SKIP_CHECK I can't see any way to avoid to display general error messages or redirect the user somewhere else. I did read: http://drupal.org/node/182310 but I don't see any easy way to exploit #process. The input is actually not valid. I don't want to add options to make it valid, I just would like to control the message or the action taken for not valid input. I'd say that if the errors were available in _validate in a more structured way with default messages it would be easier to handle similar situations. If you want to obtain general case where default errors and behavior is OK, you just don't touch the "form_error" structure, otherwise you may inspect it or just unset some entries. when _form_validate and drupal_validate_form finish their job a) the user may have been redirected somewhere else with some custom _validate hook b) all "form_errors" left could be sent to drupal_set_message After all "general" validation get called anyway even if you've "custom" validation. I still think that "general" validation is still useful even if you're going to provide element validation functions that will "override" it. Most general and frequent case is "general" validation is enough and it doesn't seem worth to provide a switch that make it "optional" or "additional" to custom element validation. Anyway even when custom validation function kicks in even if they receive an $elements, form_error already set a message in a place where I don't see any easy way to do cleanup. Still when I'll have to jump from D5 to D7, I can't see any path to solve my problem. I can't see any way to control how a form react to invalid input if the validation happens in "core" FAPI part and not in _validate hooks. You'll have to inject stuff in the form to make it "valid" just to avoid to display general errors and then re-validate it in _validate hook. form_error may just build up a structure like $form_error['formstructureL1']['formstructureL2']...=array( '#errortype' => (token | required | maxlength | invalid) '#message => ); passed along with $form_status or just add to form_values aka form_status['value'] the above extra proprieties... The custom user validation function may do some cleanup or provide custom messages. This should break the coupling between validation, error reporting and in general action to be taken in case a form fail to validate. This will still provide a sane default that in spite of just disabling a check will force you to provide a _validate hook, where you could still... ignore the error and avoid to do validation... but well that does look as a much more conscious decision than just flipping a flag. This could be accomplished without killing form_error or form_set_error. Otherwise changing the order of FAPI validation and custom user validation in _form_validate could let people set the #validated propriety but it will force people to duplicate validation code in FAPI if they need it and won't break the coupling. Separating the validation from error reporting may even open a path to provide better logging or "intrusion detection". -- Ivan Sergio Borgonovo http://www.webthatworks.it

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Coding Standards / Hook_requirements
by Nancy Wichmann 21 May '08

21 May '08

I've just taken another quick run through the Coding standards because of a module I looked at last night. The new module states right on its project page that it requires PHP 5 (as more and more modules are doing). Yet, in looking through the code, it does not include a hook_requirements. I propose adding to the Coding Standards: "Any module that has requirements over and above base Drupal standards (e.g. PHP 5 vs. 4.3.5 for D6) must include a hook_requirements implementation to verify and/or warn users of this requirement." Unfortunately, I don't think Coder would be able to check this. Nancy

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Core patches need to be tested!
by Jimmy Berry 21 May '08

21 May '08

Please read: http://blog.boombatower.com/core-patches-need-to-be-tested

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Adding Form In Block With hook_block()
by Steve Edwards 20 May '08

20 May '08

I didn't get any bites on this one on the support list, so I'm hoping some of you development gurus can help me. I would like to add a simple area calculator form (length x width x depth = area) to a sidebar block, and I'm having problems figuring how to get the form to show up in the block using hook_block(). I've gotten the block to show up in the blocks list and have enabled it, but I can't get it to show up. I've been using the blocks chapter in the PDD book as a guideline, but I must be missing something. Here's what I have so far. <?php function calculate_square_form() { $form['length'] = array( '#title' => t('Length'), '#type' => 'textfield', ); $form['width'] = array( '#title' => t('Width'), '#type' => 'textfield', ); $form['depth'] = array( '#title' => t('Depth'), '#type' => 'textfield', ); $form['depth'] = array( '#title' => t('Area'), '#type' => 'textfield', ); $form['length'] = array( '#type' => 'button', '#value' => t('Calculate area') ); } function shbark_calculate_block($op = 'list', $delta = 0, $edit = array()) { switch ($op) { case 'list': $blocks[0]['info'] = t('Square area calculator'); return $blocks; case 'view': $block['subject'] = t('Area calcultor'); drupal_get_form('calculate_square_form'); break; } } How do I get my block content to be displayed? Do I have to pass the form to a theme function? Do I assign the form data to $block['content'] somehow? Or do I have to put the form array in the 'view' case for $op instead of a separate form function? Thanks. Steve

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advanced_help in RC and strings are frozen
by Earl Miles 20 May '08

20 May '08

If anybody wishes to provide translations for this module prior to the official 1.0 release, now is a great time to do it. (Incidentally, the same will probably be true of Views 2 sometime in June).

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