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A user, across different Drupal installs, is generally the same concept. To be more basic, every user has an email address, username, and password. Let's say I write a module that works with users and manipulates these fields in some way. I can, in the majority of cases, assume this will be standard across different Drupal websites and safely distribute this module. If I wanted to provide the module the ability to manipulate other optional fields that might be added to a profile, such as first name, last name, favorite bubble-gum, etc., how could I do this? One thing that comes to mind is an optional text box (on the system settings side) that takes multi-line input, each line dictating what new field to manipulate. Is this the best way to accomplish this?

For example, let's say you add the profile fields "Hobby, Telephone #, favorite food." I write a module that populates a block with a varying number of profile fields. The number of fields depends on how many chosen in the configuration of the module; I could choose to provide a block to edit a user's "Hobby" and "Favorite Food" by entering those two lines in a text box separated by a new line. This could be done with a multivalue select box, as well, but if I want to attach other information to each field, I think the textbox allows for greater flexibility.

This could be applied for any other module, as well. Let me know if I need to abstract the question further, please.

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Could you be more specific? What do you mean by "the ability to manipulate other optional fields that might be added to a profile" do you mean give other users the ability to edit this data through forms or do you mean the ability to programmatically update custom fields? – LSU_JBob Oct 14 '11 at 22:08
I added a bit more info. Sorry for the vagueness. – mrryanjohnston Oct 17 '11 at 11:43
Could you simplify your explanation? You want to add custom form elements to the register form, then add those values to a user profile? then allow the user to edit these values in the future? – LSU_JBob Oct 17 '11 at 17:10

3 Answers

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Have you ever seen the Features module? Essentially, when you have some settings on one site, a feature can allow you to move it to another. These can be very broad, like "add these 5 fields to all user profiles", or very granular, like "these 5 features each expose a new field on a user profile".

Basically, you do the config once, and then you can carry around field settings, permissions, views, menu items, just no content - it's not designed to move content around.

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Indeed I have! Thanks for the input. However, I think my problem is still a bit fuzzy. I'll try to clarify a bit more in the future. – mrryanjohnston Oct 17 '11 at 15:23
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D6 answer: I'd iterate through $form array or node (using nodeapi) looking for anything that begins with field_ which will give you a list of all the inputs available on that particular form.

so (not tested and I'm sure is not correct names or array structure)

foreach ($form as $a => $b) {
  if($b == 'field_*') {
    // do code here
  }
}
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If I get you right, you are looking for a way to ad a different number of properties to different instances of the same node type. In this case http://drupal.org/project/properties could Be something for you.

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