[development] low hanging fruit for Drupal 6: variable defaults

[Gerhard Killesreiter]

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Gabor Hojtsy schrieb:
> Hi,
> 
> To be able to translate variables to multiple languages in Drupal
> nicely, we would need a small conceptual change, which would benefit all
> of the Drupal developers, so I am posting the call here in hopes we have
> someone or a small group to pick this task up.
> 
> **We need a central place to define variable defaults**
> 
> Simple! Now whenever you need a variable, you do
> 
>   variable_get('my_fine_var', 'my_default_value');
> 
> The problem with this is that you need to repeat this multiple times,
> and of course there is a chance you need to modify it later on, so you
> need to find all places a variable is used. Not good. Remember the
> changes from bluemarine to garland, we have been fixing theme_default
> errors for days, finding out places where the variable was used...
> 
> So we need a central place to define variable defaults. For Drupal 6
> this is enough now:
> 
>   hook_settings() {
>     return array(
>       'my_fine_var' => 'my_default_value',
>     );
>   }
> 
> Have fun with naming it hook_settings(), as far as I see, it is an
> appropriate name, and not taken at the moment :) So Drupal can do a
> module_invoke_all() on hook_settings() and collect defaults to all
> variables from the modules defining them. It gets easier and shorter to
> use variables:
> 
>   variable_get('my_fine_var');

We should however keep an optional second argument. I don't always use
the same second argument, and that's intentional.

Cheers,
	Gerhard
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