[development] Map a webservice object with dynamic fields to a Drupal node

[Sven Decabooter]

Hi,

I am working on a module that will integrate an external opensource project
with Drupal. The idea is that the other project manages the data, while
Drupal is responsible for the visualisation. I am retrieving the data
through webservices (SOAP or REST).

The fields that are coming in from the external system are not fixed (i.e.
the person setting up an instance of the system defines the fields), and I
want to make the integration module generic enough to be able to deal with
different configurations of fields.

The aim is to make a Drupal node for each object that is coming in through
the webservice. However I'm not sure what the best way would be to link /
map the incoming data to the Drupal node. The fields will be fixed per
installation of the Drupal module

Right now I have spotted a few possible roads:
- attach the data object to the $node object via nodeapi. This will however
limit the flexibility for visualisation a lot (apart from having a theme
function for it)
- use the http://drupal.org/project/data module. Haven't delved a lot into
it, and I'm not sure if it will do everything I want
- Use / create a system that can map the incoming fields with cck fields.
Not sure if anything like that exists. Feeds module does something in that
direction if i recall correctly.

Does anyone have any ideas or pointers on how I could go about tackling this
problem?

Thanks i advance.

Sven
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