The build variable name for the entity should be the same regardless of type of entity.

Couldn't you just say:

$build['#' . $entity->type] ?

$build['#'. $entity_type] sounds sane to me. Whether we want $build['#entity'] is a matter to discuss. Can't see a harm in it but then you need #entity_type in there as well.

Is File an entity in core?

This sounds good but we should consider going straight to having view() etc. methods in the entity system which do this and applying those to the individual entities compared to cleaning up each individual pipeline for consistency - I'm personally fine whichever way we do that.

Generic entity rendering is definitely an 8.x thing only.

Adding standard #build keys on top of the existing ones for D7 might be backportable, depends how an intrusive a change it might be.

Subscribe

#13 looks like a simple, backportable fix to me. Patch looks good to me, for what it's worth.

I wonder if we could do something similar to standardize entities in FAPI? (E.g. see #1261310: uid is not available in hook_field_attach_validate() and #1220212: Provide original entity in hook_field_attach_validate()).

One thought; would we maybe just want to use the full name of the key? E.g.:
'#build_name' => '#node',

It's worth noting that in the user case it is called #account rather than #user, which is why this specific approach seems more viable than just referencing $build['#' . $entity->type].

Did someone say "reroll"?

Apparently someone still needs to say "reroll."

Re-rolled

renamed to .patch ^^

Thanks for the reroll! That looks good.

If we want to add this property, we should probably add automated tests that use it (or at least assert that it is available).

Going to have a look at this.

So...here's a patch that adds some tests, I'm fairly certain that the tests are broken, sorry.

I've tried to keep the tests near the code that we're actually testing, but added the hook that allows us to test in a bit of a random place, so that would need cleaning up too.

I'm rewriting the patch

Tests are fixed

bas.hr, you should upload the test without that suffix so we actually see the failures. If you upload the test as the first patch and the combined as the second, the bot will leave it as needs review.
The do-not-test thing is for D7 patches on a D8 issue, for example.

Also an interdiff would have been good to have here.

OK thanks for pointing that out. I'm attaching the interdiff too.

It won't do that if you upload the tests patch first. This looks pretty good, are there going to be any docs about the new #build_mode part?

Thanks @bas.hr! Those tests look sufficient to me. It looks like there's coverage for comments, nodes, terms, and users; vocabularies and files do not have view modes in core currently (right?).

I agree with @tim.plunkett that we should also add documentation for the new property.

Additionally, there are a few minor cleanups we can make to the patch in the next reroll:

1. +++ b/core/modules/comment/comment.testundefined
   @@ -1857,6 +1863,43 @@ class CommentContentRebuild extends CommentHelperCase {
   + * Tests comment view altering.
   ...
   +      'description' => 'Test to make sure the comment view altering is consistent with other entities.',
   
   +++ b/core/modules/node/node.testundefined
   @@ -1991,6 +1991,35 @@ class NodeBuildContent extends NodeWebTestCase {
   + * Tests comment view altering.
   ...
   +      'description' => 'Test to make sure the node view altering is consistent with other entities.',
   
   +++ b/core/modules/taxonomy/taxonomy.testundefined
   @@ -1950,3 +1950,31 @@ class TaxonomyEFQTestCase extends TaxonomyWebTestCase {
   + * Tests taxononmy term view altering.
   ...
   +      'description' => 'Test to make sure the taxonomy term view altering is consistent with other entities.',
   
   +++ b/core/modules/user/user.testundefined
   @@ -2409,3 +2409,31 @@ class UserEntityCallbacksTestCase extends DrupalWebTestCase {
   + * Tests taxononmy term view altering.
   ...
   +      'description' => 'Test to make sure the user view altering is consistent with other entities.',
   

   Let's improve these docs. (They're a bit ambiguous, the user test case is mislabeled, and "taxonomy" is misspelled.) I think for both the class summary and the getInfo() description we can simply say:
   Tests hook_entity_view_alter() for insert_entity_name_here.

2. +++ b/core/modules/comment/comment.testundefined
   @@ -1857,6 +1863,43 @@ class CommentContentRebuild extends CommentHelperCase {
   +   * Tests the .
   
   +++ b/core/modules/node/node.testundefined
   @@ -1991,6 +1991,35 @@ class NodeBuildContent extends NodeWebTestCase {
   +   * Tests the .
   
   +++ b/core/modules/taxonomy/taxonomy.testundefined
   @@ -1950,3 +1950,31 @@ class TaxonomyEFQTestCase extends TaxonomyWebTestCase {
   +   * Tests the .
   
   +++ b/core/modules/user/user.testundefined
   @@ -2409,3 +2409,31 @@ class UserEntityCallbacksTestCase extends DrupalWebTestCase {
   +   * Tests the .
   

   For these, let's say:
   Tests that the #build_name is set correctly for insert_entity_name_here.

3. +++ b/core/modules/comment/comment.testundefined
   @@ -1857,6 +1863,43 @@ class CommentContentRebuild extends CommentHelperCase {
   +    $this->assertText('hook_entity_view_alter:build_name:#comment', 'Build name for comment is specified in hook_entity_view_alter');
   
   +++ b/core/modules/node/node.testundefined
   @@ -1991,6 +1991,35 @@ class NodeBuildContent extends NodeWebTestCase {
   +    $this->assertText('hook_entity_view_alter:build_name:#node', 'Build name for node is specified in hook_entity_view_alter');
   
   +++ b/core/modules/taxonomy/taxonomy.testundefined
   @@ -1950,3 +1950,31 @@ class TaxonomyEFQTestCase extends TaxonomyWebTestCase {
   +    $this->assertText('hook_entity_view_alter:build_name:#term', 'Build name for taxonomy term is specified in hook_entity_view_alter');
   
   +++ b/core/modules/user/user.testundefined
   @@ -2409,3 +2409,31 @@ class UserEntityCallbacksTestCase extends DrupalWebTestCase {
   +    $this->assertText('hook_entity_view_alter:build_name:#account', 'Build name for user is specified in hook_entity_view_alter');
   

   I think we can leave off the assertion messages for these. (It will then say, e.g. hook_entity_view_alter:build_name:#comment found, which is fairly self-explanatory).

4. +++ b/core/modules/user/user.testundefined
   @@ -2409,3 +2409,31 @@ class UserEntityCallbacksTestCase extends DrupalWebTestCase {
   +}
   \ No newline at end of file
   

   We need a newline at the end of the file here.

Thanks everyone!

This is a straight port since node, comment, and user tests went PSR-0. I'll address the concerns from #35-36 in the next patch.

Whoops, extra closing brace

Left out the setUp hunk by mistake. I think we're good now, but I'll wait one more time before actually improving the patch.

Well, this is immensely useless now in D8, since each view_alter function now gets the entire entity as a second parameter: #1618136: Remove $type from entity hooks

But, rerolled nonetheless. I addressed all of the feedback from #36, except that part about documenting the #build_mode, since I don't know how to explain a useless addition. This should likely just go into D7, but leaving here for now.

Still applies.

Updated issue summary.

42: drupal-1170198-42.patch queued for re-testing.

This is really nice, back to 7.x for now as it is fixed superior in D8.

Note even implementing that for core would leave contrib authors like entity module to update the build key first, which would probably happen sometime ...