[development] Getting Around The Limitations of hook_db_rewrite_sql

[Earl Miles]

Rob Thorne wrote:
> I'm writing a module for 4.7 that needs to control access to nodes 
> that are only viewable by users who are approved via an external 
> module.  To determine if a node is viewable,  I need to check the user 
> *and* the node id.  This would work, except for a design decision that 
> was made "for performance".  Here's what it says in the docs, in the 
> article about "Node access rights" 
> (http://api.drupal.org/api/HEAD/group/node_access):
>
>    In node listings, the process above is followed except that
>    hook_access <http://api.drupal.org/api/HEAD/function/hook_access>()
>    is not called on each node for performance reasons and for proper
>    functioning of the pager system. When adding a node listing to your
>    module, be sure to use db_rewrite_sql
>    <http://api.drupal.org/api/HEAD/function/db_rewrite_sql>() to add
>    the appropriate clauses to your query for access checks.
>
> In other words, even if you set up your hook_access to prohibit 
> viewing of your content, Drupal 4.7 *will display your private content 
> to an anonymous user*.  Once your private node gets added to the list, 
> there are no further checks to your hook access to determine if your 
> node is safe to display.   I don't see any way that 
> hook_db_rewrite_sql can be used for this purpose, since there is no 
> simple relationship between the current user and whether a node should 
> be viewable, short of doing one of the following things:
>
>    * I could use a IN ()  clause to list every node id of the given
>      type that the given user is allowed to see.  This may work in my
>      current situation, but there can easily be *thousands* of these in
>      some applications.  So this is not a general solution.
>    * I could manipulate the node_access table *on the fly* each time a
>      user with some access to the content type.
>    * I could  somehow  hack the  node to hide  itself by not
>      displaying  any sensitive content in hook_view, and theming it to
>      be hidden via CSS.
>
> <rant>
> IMNHO, this is complete insane.
> </rant>
Is the ACL stuff I wrote in the na_arbitrator insufficient for this?