WSCCI Conversion Guide

Last updated on
20 December 2016

This guide is a basic tutorial for the process of converting legacy page callbacks to new-style controllers. It is not a guide for porting from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8; it assumes that you're working with a fairly recent copy of Drupal 8 HEAD. (A contrib module guide for porting from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 can be based off of this document later.)

We will demonstrate the process by looking at the Book module in core. These are real-live examples (based on a true story!) of a core callback getting converted. Some snippets have been reformatted or tweaked to help illustrate a point. There are a lot of moving parts, so we'll take it in several passes and build up our understanding of what is going on. (This example is taken directly from this issue.)

If you want to help with the conversion (please do!), see any issue with the WSCCI-Conversion tag or stop by #Drupal-WSCCI in IRC.

First, let's look at an excerpt of book module pre-conversion:

book.module

/**
 * Implements hook_menu().
 */
function book_menu() {
  $items['admin/content/book'] = array(
	'title' => 'Books',
	'description' => "Manage your site's book outlines.",
	'page callback' => 'book_admin_overview',
	'access arguments' => array('administer book outlines'),
	'type' => MENU_LOCAL_TASK,
	'file' => 'book.admin.inc',
  );
  $items['admin/content/book/settings'] = array(
	'title' => 'Settings',
	'route_name' => 'book_settings',
	'access arguments' => array('administer site configuration'),
	'type' => MENU_LOCAL_TASK,
	'weight' => 100,
  );
  $items['book'] = array(
	'title' => 'Books',
	'page callback' => 'book_render',
	'access arguments' => array('access content'),
	'type' => MENU_SUGGESTED_ITEM,
	'file' => 'book.pages.inc',
  );
  $items['book/export/%/WSCCI Conversion Guide'] = array(
	'page callback' => 'book_export',
	'page arguments' => array(2, 3),
	'access callback' => 'book_export_access',
	'access arguments' => array(3),
	'type' => MENU_CALLBACK,
	'file' => 'book.pages.inc',
  );
  $items['node/WSCCI Conversion Guide/outline'] = array(
	'title' => 'Outline',
	'page callback' => 'book_outline',
	'page arguments' => array(1),
	'access callback' => '_book_outline_access',
	'access arguments' => array(1),
	'type' => MENU_LOCAL_TASK,
	'weight' => 2,
	'file' => 'book.pages.inc',
  );
  $items['node/WSCCI Conversion Guide/outline/remove'] = array(
	'title' => 'Remove from outline',
	'page callback' => 'drupal_get_form',
	'page arguments' => array('book_remove_form', 1),
	'access callback' => '_book_outline_remove_access',
	'access arguments' => array(1),
	'file' => 'book.pages.inc',
  );
  // ... 
  return $items;
}

book_menu defines a whole bunch of menu items, which in Drupal 7 are also router items. Routing is the process of mapping an incoming request to the code that will deal with it; in Drupal 7, that's a "page callback" function. In Drupal 8, it's a "controller" (usually a method of a class). We've left the page callbacks themselves out of this example for brevity.

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