[development] authentication hooks - PLEASE HELP

[Chris Johnson]

Sheryl (Permutations Software) wrote:

> I still have many other problems, however. Drupal calls databases and
> functions at unpredictable times. I can't tell what's going on and there is
> no documentation.

And earlier Sheryl wrote:
"Thanks for the watchdog tip... I don't know where common.inc is used or when
it would "be available". I'm a strong PHP programmer, but not very familiar
with Drupal's architecture."


There is lots of documentation available, but I think the problem is that 
there is no easy to find documentation on the general control flow and 
architecture of Drupal.  There is this starting point for developer-level 
documentation:  http://drupal.org/contributors-guide

But if you don't know that common.inc is included on every single page, and 
used all the time, then you clearly don't know how control flows through 
Drupal.  Likewise, calls to databases and functions.

The following link should help with getting a general overview:

http://drupal.org/node/10858

This page is admittedly not in the most obvious place to find it.

You can build your own understanding, however, by starting in /index.php, 
where all pages start, and just walking through all the calls made to generate 
just one page.  Drupal makes very extensive use of what it calls "hooks."



..chrisxj