Add support for files table

@bangpound,
Some notes from going over patch:

+define('RULES_FILE_LOAD', 'SELECT fid,uid,filename,filepath,filemime,filesize,status,timestamp FROM {files} WHERE fid = %d');

I haven't seen this in core. Maybe it would be nicer to have it as a function returning? Anyway you have missing spaces between the commas.

+function rules_events_file_arguments($file_label, $author_label, $update = FALSE) {

It seems this function is never used?

+ 'label callback' => 'rules_action_file_load_author_variable_label',

You declare the callback, but don't implement it. Anyway, you can and should implement a label callback, but don't have to declare it if you use the naming convention (i.e. RULE-CALLBACK_label). Also, the label callback is per rule, not per argument.

+items['rules_condition_file_is_type'] = $defaults + array(

I think we don't need the $defaults, you can put it directly in the condition, as there are no other conditions currently using it.

+ drupal_write_record('files', $file);

If we are updating an existing file then it I think it should be drupal_write_record('files', $file, array('fid'));

+ return $file->fid ? db_fetch_object(db_query(RULES_FILE_LOAD, $file->fid)) : $file;

return !empty($file->fid) ? ... <- for no PHP warnings.

I really appreciate your patch, however it seems to be complicated to use to me. So I think it wouldn't make much sense to add it to rules itself, as most of the users won't be able to use it. Thus I'd suggest you provide a small separate module for that - ideally shipping with some usage instructions.

Part of the problem that your stuff is hard to use is that there is no easy way to get files attached to a node. I'm aware of that problem and I work on improving it for rules2 - so probably then your stuff would make sense. So we can look into including it for rules2.

@code: Hm, usually drupal uses the file ending for identifying the file types right? Perhaps you should call your condition "File has mimetype" instead.

ah. if you decide to go with the module for now, don't forget to add it here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/14253

Just curious - would this patch address the following use case?

We are using content_profile, and we want to allow the user to upload a new user profile photo via CCK filefield upload. The problem is that the system user picture is used in so many locations, and by some contrib modules we're using, that we want to synchronize the user picture and the CCK filefield upload. That is:

1) User goes to "Edit Profile" page, uploads new photo (CCK filefield)
2) User saves their profile changes
3) We capture that upload event with Rules, and make a copy of the photo they've uploaded in the system user picture location.
4) We continue to call the user picture where needed

Is this something we can do with Rules, using this patch?

There are other Rules use cases for files. For example, I would like to archive files on cron, which could be a rule. In fact, I might make it as a Rule. =)

Brilliant. Thanks for sharing. =)

As files are entities in d7, with already basic support for them. loading + creating should work, while I know we are missing entity metadata for the file+imagefield. If we have that, file support should be fine. There is an entity metadata issue for that.

Updated component.