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Drupal 8 Entity API cheat sheet
Wait, is it "$node->title" or "$node->title->value"? How do I write an EntityQuery again? Yeah, I can never remember, either.
Metal Toad Staff
Nov 22, 2017
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Wait, is it "$node->title" or "$node->title->value"? How do I write an EntityQuery again? Yeah, I can never remember, either.
For the developers out there, if you've already read the official Drupal 8 Entity API documentation and you want more examples, here's a handy cheat sheet:
The examples here contain some hard-coded IDs. These are all examples. In your real code, you should already have the node IDs, file IDs, etc. in a variable.
Working with nodes
Load a node by NID:
$nid = 123; // example value $node_storage = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('node'); $node = $node_storage->load($nid);
Get node's NID:
echo $node->id(); // 123
Get node's bundle type:
echo $node->bundle(); // 'article' echo $node->getType(); // 'article' - this is the same as bundle() for most entities, but doesn't work for all entity types
Get a built-in field value:
echo $node->get('title')->value; // "Lorem Ipsum..." echo $node->get('created')->value; // 1510948801 echo $node->get('body')->value; // "The full node body, <strong>with HTML</strong>" echo $node->get('body')->summary; // "This is the summary" // a custom text field echo $node->get('field_foo')->value; // "whatever is in your custom field" // a file field echo $node->get('field_image')->target_id; // 432 (a managed file FID)
or the shorthand, with magic getters:
echo $node->title->value; // "Lorem Ipsum..." echo $node->created->value; // 1510948801 echo $node->body->value; // "This is the full node body, <strong>with HTML</strong>" echo $node->body->summary; // "This is the summary" echo $node->field_foo->value; // "whatever is in your custom field" echo $node->field_image->target_id; // 432
For more about that file entity target ID, see the "Working with File Entities" section below
Get nodes from a query:
$query = \Drupal::entityQuery('node') ->condition('type', 'article'), ->condition('field_foo', 42); $nids = $query->execute(); $nodes = $node_storage->loadMultiple($nids); foreach ($nodes as $n) { echo $n->title->value; // "Lorem Ipsum..." // do whatever you would do with a node object (set fields, save, etc.) $n->set('title', "this is a test"); $n->save(); }
Set fields
$node->set('title', "Moby Dick"); $node->set('body', array( 'summary' => "Book about a whale", 'value' => "Call me Ishmael...", 'format' => 'basic_html', )); $node->save();
Delete node(s)
// one $nid = 42; // example value $node = $node_storage->load($nid); $node->delete(); // multiple $nids = [21,12,45,67]; // example value $nodes = $node_storage->loadMultiple($nids); $node_storage->delete($nodes); // multiple, loading one at a time to avoid "out of memory" errors - may be slow $nids = [21,12,45,67]; // example value foreach($nids as $nid) { $node = $node_storage->load($nid); $node->delete(); }
Working with Paragraphs
"Paragraphs" (from the popular contrib module of the same name) are separate entities that are related to the parent nodes via an entity reference revision.
$my_paragraph = null; foreach ($node->get('field_paragraph_reference') as $para) { if ($para->entity->getType() == 'your_paragraph_type') { // e.g., "main_content" or "social_media" $my_paragraph = $para->entity; } } if (!empty($my_paragraph)) { // $my_paragraph is a regular entity and can be interacted with like any other entity echo $my_paragraph->field_somefield->value; // (however, they don't have a "title" like a node) echo $my_paragraph->title->value; // <-- this won't work } else { echo "The node doesn't have this paragraph type."; }
Get paragraph entity type:
echo $my_paragraph->getType(); // "main_content"
Working with File entities
Managed files are also separate entities, which are associated with the node using a type of Entity Reference.
Get a file by ID:
$fid = 42; // example value $file_storage = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('file'); $file = $file_storage->load($fid);
Get a file referenced in a node:
$file = $node->field_image->entity;
Reading some properties from a File entity:
echo $file->getFileUri(); // "public://file123.jpg" // if you want the URL without Drupal's custom scheme, you can translate it to a plain URL: echo file_url_transform_relative(file_create_url($file->getFileUri())); // "/sites/default/files/public/file123.jpg" echo $file->filename->value; // "file123.jpg" echo $file->filemime->value; // "image/jpeg" echo $file->filesize->value; // 63518 (size in bytes) echo $file->created->value; // 1511206249 (Unix timestamp) echo $file->changed->value; // 1511234256 (Unix timestamp) echo $file->id(); // 432
To see what other properties are available, look at the columns in the `file_managed` table.
The file's user data
echo $file->uid->target_id; // 1 echo $file->uid->value; // <-- doesn't work. Use target_id instead. echo $file->uid->entity->name->value; // "alice" echo $file->uid->entity->timezone->value; // "America/Los_Angeles"
Working with Entity References
Reading from entity reference fields that allow multiple values:
foreach ($node->field_my_entity_reference as $reference) { // if you chose "Entity ID" as the display mode for the entity reference field, // the target_id is the ONLY value you will have access to echo $reference->target_id; // 1 (a node's nid) // if you chose "Rendered Entity" as the display mode, you'll be able to // access the rest of the node's data. echo $reference->entity->title->value; // "Moby Dick" }
Populate the value of an entity reference field which allows multiple values (this replaces any existing value in the DB)
$nids = [3,4,5,6]; // example value $node->set('field_my_entity_reference', $nids); $node->save();
Append new referenced items to an entity reference field (this preserves existing values)
$nids = [3,4,5,6]; // example value foreach ($nids as $nid) { $node->field_my_entity_reference[] = [ 'target_id' => $nid ]; } $node->save();
I hope this saves everyone some time. It certainly is helpful to me every time I write a custom Drupal 8 module.
Happy coding!